Learn breakthrough self-activation techniques to: *Become more engaged with your life *Enjoy daily activities *Feel able to face challenges *Stop avoiding social situations *Feel strong and competent again *Conquer the obstacles that keep depression going *Stop making decisions based on your moods *Get back on track with your life goals *Recognize the habits and patterns that fuel your depression Achieve medication-free recovery Behavioral activation therapy offers effective, fast relief from depression. This powerful and progressive therapy steers away from the idea that depression symptoms represent an illness or weakness. Instead, depression is merely a signpost pointing directly at the things that need to change in one's life. Its engaging exercises make it easy for you to focus on activities that will inspire you with feelings of pleasure, mastery, and engagement. Learn to develop a list of enjoyable activities, or activities you need to engage in as a part of a normal and satisfying life. Begin with the easiest (or sometimes, the most indispensable) activities on your the list, and learn how to tackle them one by one. This simple, profound process will connect you with naturally occurring rewards, which are powerful antidotes to feelings of depression. With this foundation, go on to change how you approach your day-to-day life-your daily activities, the choices you make, and the way you cope with life's ups and downs. You'll find this proven-effective approach to coping with depression easy to master.

Depression in Context will appeal to professionals and students alike. Neil Jacobson was a leader in developing and testing treatments for depression. At the time of his death, in 1999, he Christopher Martell, and Michael Addis had just begun work on this book. In fact, they had spent several years discussing behavioral approaches to treating depression and had been collaborating on one of the largest clinical trials for depression comparing behavioral activation to cognitive therapy and medication. Preliminary findings from this study suggest that treating depression by helping to activate people (behavioral action) is just as effective as helping them to change their thinking (cognitive therapy).