Your Depression Map

What causes depression? 

Is it poor diet, difficult life events, problems in relationships, your genetic makeup, a lack of meaning in life, or perhaps a biological imbalance? The truth is, all of these factors (and dozens more) can play a role. Understanding the risk factors operating in your own case can help you to choose between the many recommended strategies for dealing with your own depression.

In Part One of Your Depression Map, readers are invited to explore their own symptoms and risk factors, and to move from these to a treatment strategy tailored to them. Though not intended as a substitute for professional care, the exercises and recommendations can help you identify the self-directed coping techniques likely to be most helpful for you. The book is organized around a model of depression called the Depression Map: a set of nine interacting areas of your own life that can contribute to mood problems. The nine realms, or nodes, of the Depression Map are: History, Biology, Physiology, Emotion, Thought, Behavior, Situation, Social Concerns, and Meaning.

Part Two of the book presents 76 separate strategies for coping with depression. No one will ever use all 76, but understanding the nature of your own depression will help you pick the most promising ones. Some strategies are recommended for everyone; while others are just for special instances.

This book is currently out of print.

The ideas within the book, however, have been adapted to appear in a new online course for the general public: Undoing Depression: Take Action and Feel Better Using Cognitive Behavior Therapy Principles. Registrants receive access to over 10 hours of video, plus a 100-page guidebook incorporating many of the principles and documents from Your Depression Map.