Silencing The Self : Women and Depression

Rating:
Summary: Excellent for women to re-discover who they were and can be!
Review: An opportunity for women to put the pieces of thier lives together to form a complete picture of themselves. Offers others' lives to identify with through thier experiences. Also presents an opportunity to recognize that society plays a major role in women's self-distortion. If one can make it through the first chapter, the rest is easy!

Rating:
Summary: Depressed women
Review: It is well established from epidemiological studies that women suffer more depressive illness than men. Housebound housewives have a specially high amount of depression. Men commit suicide more often and are more ptone to alcoholism. A number of theories have been suggested to account for these facts.
Jack reviews some of the psychological theories (none of the biological ones) and presents her own theory that the depression is the result of women's indoctrination to self-effacement and low self-esteem (This is an over-simplification, and you'd have to read the book to do her ideas full justice).
She supports her thesis by a two year study of twelve depressed women. She did not have a control group. I don't see why not. It could be that she wanted to concentrate on the individuals' feelings in a non-quantitative way, but she does present a questionnaire and some statistics.
Nevertheless the interviews and case studies are well done and helpful to anyone interested in depression. Her recommended psychotherapy methods (medication is barely mentions) seem to be what is sometimes called dialectical or cognitive. Again you'd need a control group to prove treatment effectiveness.
As a self-help book for depressed patients themselves. I think it's a little too densely written. The writing is good and lucid, but someone in the throes of a severe depression would find trouble following it. Relatives of depressed women, especially husbands, might benefit more but this is not one of the depression books I would highly recommend to non-professionals. Prodessionals who work with depression and students who are interested in cognitive and dialectical approaches with (ok - now it comes) a feminist slant should find it useful and highly readable.