Whitfield - The truth about depression: choices in healing

It gives me great pleasure to endorse Charles Whitfields important and useful book, The Truth About Depression: Choices for Healing. Among his many important insights, Dr. Whitfield makes the important connection between childhood trauma and depression. Written for both a lay and clinical professional audience, this book will be of great value to readers because it clearly lays out the parameters of the various types of depressionas well as its treatment. It also documents the relationship between child abuse of all kinds and the later possibility of lifetime depression and other serious psychological illness. Although psychology and psychiatry have been addressing the reality of trauma in childhood as a major cause of mental illness, before Whitfields book this strong evidence was spread throughout the clinical and scientific literature. It has not been condensed in one volume until now. The Truth About Depression is an essential, clearly written explanation of one of the most common illnesses that strikes humankind.

Paul Jay Fink, M.D.
past president, American Psychiatric Association
professor of psychiatry, Temple University
School of Medicine

Important and useful. From his extensive experience with adult survivors of childhood trauma, Charles Whitfield, M.D., challenges conventional views about the cause and treatment of depression. Clear and well-documented, this book shows us that depression is usually best understood not as a mental illness, but rather as a normal response to abnormal life experiences (traumas), most of which go unrecognized because of their concealment by shame, social nicety and taboo. Integrating current developments in neurobiology, Dr. Whitfield helps us appreciate the important distinction between experiential cause and neuro-chemical mechanism in depression. Physicians, other clinicians, patients and families will find this a helpful book about the cause and treatment of depression. Highly recommended.

Vincent J. Felitti, M.D.
California Institutes of Preventive Medicine

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Whitfield, Charles L.

The truth about depression: choices in healing / Charles L. Whitfield.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-75730-037-0 (Paperback)

ISBN-10: 0-7573-0037-5 (Paperback)

ISBN-13: 978-0-75731-301-1 (ePub)

ISBN-10: 0-7573-1301-9 (ePub)

1. Depression, MentalTreatment. I. Title.

2003 Charles L. Whitfield
ISBN 0-7573-0037-5

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

HCI, its Logos and Marks are trademarks of Health Communications, Inc.

Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.

3201 S.W. 15th Street

Deerfield Beach, FL 33442-8190

R-08-05

Cover design by Lawna Patterson Oldfield
Inside book design by Lawna Patterson Oldfield
Cover photo Digital Vision

To my wife Barbara

A special acknowledgment and thanks to Barbara Whitfield for her untiring support and assistance in completing this book. Also to those who have contributed in diverse and important ways. These include Rob Anda, M.D.; Vincent Felitti, M.D.; Josh Kendall; J. Douglas Bremner, M.D.; Doreen DuPont, M.D.; Steve Gold, Ph.D.; Paul J. Fink, M.D.; Michael De Bellis, M.D.; C. Bruce Greyson, M.D.; John Kab and Robynne Moran; David Healy, M.D., and Charles Medawar. I also acknowledge everyone at Health Communications who contributed, including Christine Belleris, Allison Janse, Kathy Grant, Lawna Oldfield, Mary Ellen Hettinger, Erica Orloff, Bob Land and Peter Vegso.

I thank all of my patients who over the decades have inspired and informed me with their truth and their courage.

I am grateful for all the recent research studies by hundreds of dedicated clinical and basic scientists who continue to validate the truth about the link between trauma and illness.

And last, but certainly not least, I thank my daughter and my grandchildren, who continually give me hope for our species to finally evolve into a safe and healthy society.

T his book is not intended to replace the counsel of a licensed therapist in sorting out individual concerns and healing from depression. Each persons case is unique and deserves special attention. The references in the back of this book may assist the reader with the further exploration and explanation of this important information. This information is not the final word on the subject and may represent only the tip of the iceberg of the many dimensions of depression and trauma. For a more complete account of other mental disorders, the reader may refer to my companion book, The Truth About Mental Illness.

T hroughout history we have looked for the cause of depression and other mental illness, and we still dont know it. The two major theories have long been and remain: nature (genes, biology) versus nurture (environment, family).

Our mistake has been to focus on only one or the other. In fact, based on our current knowledge, it appears that both nature and nurture are active factors in most people with mental disorders. These afflictions include:

Depression and suicidality

Anxiety disorders

Alcohol and other drug problems

Personality disorders

Attention deficit disorder (ADD) and violence

Eating disorders

Schizophrenia

Dissociative disorders

In 1999 I began writing notes for my own use that summarized what I understood about depression and other so-called mental disorders based on what I had observed in my private practice and what I was reading in the clinical scientific literature. After I wrote half of it as these notes to myself, I realized that this information was too important not to share it. Sixteen years ago I wrote Healing the Child Within in a similar vein. I wrote it as educational material for my private patients, and not for public distribution. Eventually it was published by Health Communications and has sold about 1.5 million copies. Its usefulness was spread mostly by word of mouth from readers.

Since then the principles I described there have not changed. They are still valid. But the literature to back it up has expanded to such an extent that I believe that it is now worth sharing with you. Its main problem is that this valuable and validating literature is scattered over numerous journals and books, many of them unknown to most people, published both in this country and around the worldmostly over the last twenty years.

In this book I take a new look at the common problem of depression. In the second and companion volume, The Truth About Mental Illness, I take a similar fresh look at other common mental illness. While many helping professionals and consumers have made the connection between childhood and later trauma and the onset of mental disorders, many have not. Some may be partially aware but dont know how strong the trauma-mental disorder link is. This book will: