I'm Amazed at How you "Get it"

Dear A. B. Curtiss

Again, I'd like to thank you for such an uplifting book. I have gone through a few more chapters and I am simply amazed at how you "get it" when it comes to depression. If you don't mind, what’s your take on the Tom Cruise debate that occurred a while ago? I don't agree with his Scientology beliefs, yet I am glad to see someone finally speak out against Big Pharma. Also, have you ever read Andrew Solomon's "Noonday Demon"?

I have nearly every Tony Robbins book and CD out there, and to see him mentioned in your book is uplifting. Many people, I know, dismiss him as a showman, the informercial king, somewhere between the Flowbee and Carleton Sheets. Yet I've found some positive and great information in his stuff. Made me break it back out and go through it again.

Thanks for sharing your personal stories as well in the book. I've found similar parallels in my life, and having them explained by you has helped shed light on how I feel. To be honest, I'm actually looking forward to my next depressive episode so I can apply some of your techniques. Unfortunately, it looks like depression doesn't like to be "welcome," so it may be a while before I can give it a try. Tom

Dear Tom

Tony Robbins stuff is wonderful. He isn't that much of a creative thinker but has his own inspiring slant in the way he recycles ancient wisdom and the work of Emile Coue and Jose Silva, creator of Silva Mind Control. But that's the usual thing. Most creative thinkers are not great promoters and the ideas need to get out there in the line of sight where they can be helpful so we need the hucksters like Tony
Robbins who add their own inspiring message. We each have our own unique work to do in the world.

I agree with Tom Cruise although he doesn’t help the cause by jumping on sofas. L. Ron Hubbard was a genius and his “clear” technique is simply a further elaboration of Emile Coue’s work in hypnosis. Coue’s work goes way back to Mesmer in 18th C France, the creator of hypnosis, though they didn't call it that back then. Coue’s work is also the basis of Freud’s work as well, but Freud was too neurotic himself to really understand it, and he took it in another direction—psychoanalysis, which has never been successful although it became a real money maker. But of course Hubbard’s excellent techniques also have been corrupted into a money maker. Too Bad. Anybody can use the “clear” techniques, however, without having to resort to Scientology per se. All these ideas have been around for a long time and they continue to be picked up and carried on, each of us adding our unique perception to what has gone before.

I have read Noonday Demon. My opinion? A bit whiny with another big bow to anti-depressants. Of course his family comes from Big Pharma so there was a lot of money behind his book to promote the pharmaceutical industry. His book is much like Kay Redfield Jamison's work. Same whine, same savior. Of course, the writing in both these books is excellent. And they describe the agony of depression in a profound way. But they don't seem to know a thing about how their own brain works and both basically have decided to surrender helplessly to their own minds. I would rather see mediocre writing describing the joy of how you get out of depression instead Pulitzer Prize poetry about the agony of how you have to live with it. A. B. Curtiss