Journeys with the Black Dog – Travelling through Depression

This is almost an addendum to my previous post, the review of “Dealing with Depression”. Another excellent book hot off the press is “Journeys with the Black Dog”, edited by Gordon Parker (last post), Tessa Wigney and Kerrie Eyers.

The book compiles hundreds of stories received in response to a Black Dog Institute Writing Competition. It charts the journey through depression, from onset to diagnosis, relapse and eventual management, and it highlights a diverse and inspiring range of coping strategies.

Here are some of the many reviews received:

A wonderful book for anyone who has been depressed or who wants to understand depression better. It is insightful, compassionate, and invaluable.
Kay Redfield Jamison, Professor of Psychiatry
The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

It cuts deep and speaks to the soul as well as the intellect.
Professor Geoff Gallop, Former Premier of Western Australia

The use of the black dog as a metaphor for depression, popularised by Winston Churchill, provides a fertile starting point for the contributors to Journeys with the Black Dog. But there are other recurring analogies: greyness, fog, and suffocation. The contributors, invariably all good writers, all use these metaphors to describe their own experience of depression. Their words, submitted for the Black Dog Institute’s annual writing competition, are excerpted in themed chapters, moving from onset through diagnosis, acceptance and wellbeing strategies to “the view from the top”.
The AGE (Melbourne newspaper)
Reviewer Lorien Kaye

I would like to congratulate you for producing a resource that I am certain will help not only those living with depression, their families and caregivers, but also professionals treating individuals suffering this debilitating disease. I FOUND THIS BOOK TO BE AN INSPIRING EXAMPLE OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT RISING OVER ADVERSITY.
Entrant # 201

Journeys with the Black Dog goes to places most other books in the mental health area can’t get to because it is an organised collection of written pieces by depression sufferers – the real experts on depression. In writing about living, coping with and managing their illness, there is a honesty in each presentation – whether it be a few sentences or a few pages – that provides the reader with more than information. Here you have the feelings of suffering with depression. Therefore, the ideas presented are very real and sometimes painfully honest.
Entrant # 143

I have just received my copy of the latest book in the Black Dog series and I am delighted with the quality of your work. Your method of incorporating our various entries into the blended text is nothing short of brilliant. You have produced a work that will be of immense value to readers and that is far greater than any of the individual contributors could have hoped to produce. Well done – and thank you.
Entrant # 187

I loved the fact that the last chapter was entitled “The view from the top” because when I went into hospital with depression my sister-in-law gave me a card, and on it she wrote “you have a mountain to climb, but when you get there, the view from the top will be simply amazing”. And it is!! Thanks again.
Entrant #305

Enough quotes. Okay, okay.

The book hasn’t yet circulated beyond Australian and New Zealand shores, but it can be bought electronically at: http://www.ebooks.com/. I expect it will be available on Amazon and other online retailers in the near future.

Tags: dealing with depression, help for depression, living with depression, mental health, overcoming depression, self-help, someone with depression