I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression
Product Description
Twenty years of experience treating men and their families has convinced psychotherapist Terrence Real that depression is a silent epidemic in men — that men hide their condition from family, friends, and themselves to avoid the stigma of depression’s “un-manliness.” Problems that we think of as typically male — difficulty with intimacy, workaholism, alcoholism, abusive behavior, and rage-are really attempts to escape depression. And these escape attempts only hurt the people men love and pass their condition on to their children. This groundbreaking book is the “pathway out of darkness” that these men and their families seek. Real reveals how men can unearth their pain, heal themselves, restore relationships, and break the legacy of abuse. He mixes penetrating analysis with compelling tales of his patients and even his own experiences with depression as the son of a violent, depressed father and the father of two young sons.Amazon.com Review
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I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression
The author spends most of the time excorcizing (sp) his personal demons. The rest he spends with severe case studies.
Try something else.
This is a difficult read, its mostly composites and difficult to glean any real clinical information. Admittedly i haven’t gotten though the entire book yet. Unmasking Male Depression is much better for clinical information, if you can stomach being preached at.
I found this book to be extremely useful in helping gay men with their depression. Real talks about how men who do not follow the traditional patriarchal model of how to be “male” are punished which contributes to depression. This applies even moreso to gay men who are punished for *not* being the type of men heterosexist and homophobes want us to be. Both heterosexism and homophobia stem directly from patriarchal attitudes.
This is the second book on male depression I have read (first being Archibald Hart’s Understanding Male Depression and out of print). Not written from a Christian perspective but a good read and useful for all men at every age-in other words, it’s never too late nor too early to read this book! He has an insightful discussion about the active and passive abuse that occurs to many men in the socialization process, a process that teaches us to hold emotions at a distance. What I take away from the book is that many men suffer from covert or overt depression. They have learned to cover up the pain of their depression with addictive behavior which may lead to abuse or irresponsibility toward others and by keeping relationships at a distance emotionally. When things collapse or their self-medication attempts fail, the depression breaks out.
One of my favorite quotes: “The essential shift in question that marks a depressed man’s transformation is the shift from: What shall I get? to: What can I offer? . . . Recovery demands a move into generativity.” 321
For more look up my blog at ruach.wordpress.com
This is a very good book- it’s well-written, thorough, and engaging. I’d say there is a secret legacy of male depression in American society, but hopefully this condition is improving as less stigma is associated with depression. The book helped me to understand the context of my own battle with depression, giving me new perspective. Avery Z. Conner, author of “Fevers of the Mind”.