Rating: 
Summary: If you're reading this now it's a good idea to buy this book
Review: If you've tracked down this book, you are probably
wondering if you or someone you know is battling
depression. If this is the case, you will not find a
more thoughtful, more profound, or more lucid an
introduction to the subject of the ravages of
depression than this. It offers the solace of
shared experience and the quiet strength of a survivor. It is a book to be re-read over and over
again and cherished for the hard truths it shows
Rating:
Summary: Simply Magnificent
Review: Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness is a William Styron piece that describes in vivid detail his experience with clinical depression. Styron takes the reader into his mind, and the reader is able to feel the extreme pain that Styron had experienced. One of the most telling scenes was when he had learned that his friend had commited suicide by "putting a bullet into his head." This piece is quite educational as well. This book puts into light the severe and dangerous aspects of depression, and Styron also impresses the reader with his vast knowledge of the disease by his own mmedical research. This book is simply magnificent, and I challenge anyone to put it down after beginning the book
Rating:
Summary: Darkness Visible speaks straight to the heart . . .
Review: This 84-page page masterpiece gives more insight into the personal torture that is depression than any psychological text. The candor, honesty and startling ability to explain the unexplainable allows the reader to grasp what true depresssion is like. A wonderful book
Rating:
Summary: Moving description of depression relating true understanding
Review: This moving description helps even non-sufferers of the disease to better understand the feelings of those who struggle with depression. It offers some hope for the future and a reason to hang in there and support loved ones who have given up on themselves
Rating: 
Summary: defines depression
Review: If you know someone who suffers from depression and want
a clue into what the experience is, this is the book.
I myself suffer from depression and was always had pressed to explain to another
what it was like. Styron does not have difficulty doing it.
"Feeling the wind from the wings of madness"
Rating: 
Summary: Short and honestly descriptive account
Review: Since I have suffered from depression, I can relate to this book in many ways. For me, it is uplifting in ways to hear an accout of another who has suffered in similar ways and to ultimately hear of his triumph over the disease. He describes the disease well, emphasing how difficult it is to exaplain to others the terrible disabilitating effects of the disease. It is good that this book is a short, easy reader that does not waste time. The personal accounts are great. Lets others know they are not alone.
Rating:
Summary: A Short and Bittersweet Essay By a Survivor
Review: Having wrestled with various mental health issues myself, I found Bill Styron's essay quite interesting. I recommend this book to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic and Well Written
Review: <br /><br /><br />This is a fantastic and well written moemoir about the life of someone dealing with depression, the reasons behind the depression and the inspirational journey through the darkness and in to the light. Several other good books in this genre are Nightmares Echo, Running With Scissors, and Moods and Madness.
Rating:
Summary: Hope and despair
Review: A couple of years ago, I learned that I suffer from depression. It was a major eye-opener and explained a lot of my behavior over the 50+ years of my life. I've begun reading more about the disease over the last few months and this monogram came to my atttention through my wife, who also reads.
As I read through the first part of Styron's story, I was petrified. His descriptions of his feelings so mirrored my own experience. The words were penetrating and his writing is precise when he describes his experience. I did not know if I could finish the book because of this.
But, I perservered because I knew that he must have made it through the cycle of depression. After all, he lived to write the book. I'm glad I finished reading it. He tells the story with passion and clarity and I appreciate his candor.
I finished the book with a mixture of hope and disappointment. Hope because if he made it through his depression, I might very well make it through my own; disappointment because he found no cure and I may not either. All in all, I highly recommend this book for those who need to know about the disease, whether because they experience it directly or because a loved one is depressed. There is inight in it.
Rating:
Summary: Objectivity Obscured by Depression?
Review: William Styron presents a vivid and haunting description of depression. I was engaged on an intellectual level by his lucid, elegant prose. Likewise, Darkness Visible elicits a visceral, emotional response vis 'a vis Styron's candid descriptions of his dissent into the depths of his depression and emergence from his harrowing sojourn. In general, Styron's struggle evoked feelings of sympathy and empathy as well as an interest in the prognosis and outcome of his therapy. The therapists and treatment interventions employed with Styron helped to highlight the elusive quality of depression, presenting as many unanswered questions to the patient, therapist and reader regarding the development, understanding and treatment of this baffling disease. The above issues will be examined in detail, as I attempt to picture myself in the hospital/treatment setting and try to discern what it would be like to undergo such turmoil.
I think one of the central elements of Styron's ability to relay his tortured tale lies in his ability to communicate in an elegant, literary style, which transcends psychiatric jargon. For example, his reference to Dante, Dickinson and other literary figures as well as artists such as Van Gough, reveal not only the breadth of his knowledge, but also the common thread between the arts and psychology. His profound ability to communicate and write allows a therapist to gain an insider's perspective of the bleak wilderness of depression.
Furthermore, Styron's literary ability provokes a "gut" response, as he describes the perils of his illness. For example, he contrasts the treatment of other serious physical illnesses with the hidden dilemma confronted by those who suffer from psychological disorders, such as depression. He states, "... the sufferer of depression... finds himself... like a walking casualty of war, thrust into the most intolerable social and family situations" (p. 62). Certainly, this imagery aptly evokes a realistic version of what it must be like to suffer an illness, which is not readily apparent and sympathized with by others.
Styron presents a unique view of the therapists and the modalities they employ with their clients. Dr. Gold is presented as a sort of secular priest, ordained by Yale University, who becomes for Styron, "the receptacle for an outpouring of woes during fifty minutes that also provides relief for the victim's wife" (p. 52). Albeit, I do not think Styron is altogether fair and even handed in his description of the therapists and their attendant treatment modalities. For example, his description of Art Therapy as "organized infantilism" (p. 74) is rather cynical and also reveals a certain ignorance of the value in utilizing art therapy in adulthood. Jungian psychologists have long understood the importance of art and employing mandala symbolism in their client' s later years. Nevertheless, his description of the narcissistic, " odiously smug" group therapy leader with the Freud wannabe beard, should resonate with most people who have been exposed to a great deal of therapists (p.73). His analogy comparing modern debates over theories of depression to the archaic issue of blood letting is revealing. His defense of ECT(electro-convulsive therapy...aka...shock treatment), which will probably be regarded as our modern version of the aforementioned, is somewhat suspect. It's interesting that he himself did not personally experience this modality.
At the risk of seeming overly critical, Styron seems to swallow whole the orthodoxy of modern psychiatry, bypassing some of its most distasteful elements. Likewise, he describes the disease as taking" full possession of my system"(p.47). There is more than one occasion in this book where "evil spirit" or "devil" could be substituted for disease and one would be transported back to a medieval description of demonic possession. The similarities between religion and psychiatry are all too readily apparent as Szasz points out in Ideology and Insanity: Essays on the Psychiatric Dehumanization of Man. Although Styron cites Camus's existentialism as a source of literary inspiration, I was sometimes left wondering if a student of Sartre would describe his "possession" as a repudiation of modern existential concepts, such as "bad faith" and free will.
In conclusion, I have attempted to picture myself in his hospital setting. Certainly, this is highly unlikely due to the contrast between the ordinary person's means of procuring affordable treatment and Mr. Styron's ability to obtain the gold standard of treatment, which he readily admits. While Styron seems to credulously embrace the hospital setting as beneficent, for me it held the possibility of a more negative outcome. After meeting and seeing Dr.Thomas Szasz speak last year and being aware of the pitfalls of misdiagnosis as well as the custodial nature of some institutions, I am more likely to agree with Dr. Gold's view of the hospital as a last resort. Perhaps, for Mr. Styron this was, indeed, the case. Anyhow, the Author's hospital setting and its imagery, replete with green institutional paint, was far from therapeutic. Ironically, I found Styron's objectivity may have been obscured by the very malady he attempted to describe.
References
Styron, W. , (1990) . Darkness visible. New York: Vintage Books.
Szasz, T. , (1991) . Ideology and insanity: essays on the psychiatric dehumanization of man. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press.
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