Should I Read Your Books as Well to Support My Wife?

Dear A. B.Curtiss

Thank you for responding so quickly. Currently my wife is undergoing therapy sessions and has tried different medications. The current medication has had an effect positively but it is not enough for her to feel the change but I am able to see it.

We have not read any of your books, she is not doing any mind exercises and I stumbled upon your site by doing a google search. We have ordered the books on Amazon though and anticipate it arriving this week.

The reason I am emailing instead of my wife is because I have done the search and just happened to email you. However, I did read your response to her and she is willing to read the book. I have always felt that the body is a "self healer" and that diet, exercise and meditation of some sorts could heal anything in the body. Thank you for offering coaching tips for the book and for being willing to help people overcome something as serious as depression. I look forward to being in touch in the near future and I "bless" you for all that you are doing.
By the way, which book do you suggest that my wife reads first, of your two on depression and do you suggest that I read them as well to help support her. Thanks again! J________

Dear J_______

The major use of these medications that psychiatry mandates for supposedly "mentally ill" patients is to blunt their emotional affect and behavior so they are less trouble for other people. These drugs don't do the patients that much good. This is why you see a difference and your wife does not.

Several years ago I was contacted to help organize the training of patients who have been languishing in mental hospitals for years, heavily medicated, but the insurance finally ran out and the hospitals are trying to get rid of them. In a last ditch effort to do something worthwhile they wanted me to give them a crash six-week course in coping mechanisms so they could "make it" in the real world. Why didn't the hospitals teach these coping mechanisms? Was it that they didn't know how or was it just easier and more cost effective to hand out medication? I felt bad for the patients about to be let go, but I felt that cleaning up after the hospitals wasn’t a good way to change the system.

As for which book to start with, it depends upon your wife's personality. Let me explain. If she is a book person and reads a lot, perhaps Depression is a Choice might appeal to her as it is the philosophy of how to get out of depression. It is a psychological autobiography of my journey out of manic depression. My early foolishness and suffering, my slow learning and educating myself, and my ultimate victory. On my website is a review translating my philosophical terms into Christian terms. The article is called "Biblical Exegesis."

Brainswitch out of Depression is a synthesis of the information in the first book in a more user-friendly how-to kind of fashion and I label it the neuroscience of how to get out of depression.

I recommend that you read the books as well in order to support your wife. A. B. Curtiss