We all share identical properties that mark us out as human beings. Even so, every person is unique: we are not clones. It's the same with depression - or perhaps more properly the depressions (plural) - because they manifest in so many different ways and under different circumstances yet in essence remain the same. This is a simple enough observation, yet there appears to be little understanding of the condition - or conditions - among the general public, who tend to lump together all states of 'feeling miserable' into something to be snapped out of, a disease category to be treated medically, or a feebleness of personality to be disapproved of and dismissed. In this new title from Wyn Bramley, many different views on causation and treatment are explored. The emphasis is on real people's experiences from all aspects of the depressions - sufferers, helpers, family and friends - not a self-help work but an all-encompassing aid to understanding this common condition.

After forty years' experience in the field of psychotherapy, Wyn Bramley presents a clinical memoir, which is simultaneously 'light' but serious, outlining all that happens (or fails to happen) that is not covered by books or training. She draws on her vast experience and uses material from real cases to illustrate and explore some of the unexpected manholes and creative rule-breaking which has been necessary to her work. Wyn Bramley has worked in the mental health field for more than 50 years. In this book she invites experienced therapists and counsellors to consider becoming more self-directed practitioners, grateful to but not dependent on their old training and ideology. She advocates a coming together of the various disciplines as opposed to the old factionalism, believing that modern psychodynamic principles and concepts can be assimilated into all modalities. She takes old ideas in this field that have stood the test of time and places them, along with lively case material, in a contemporary context. She also brings us up to date with the latest Relational thinking, which readers may have missed in their training. Her central conviction is that mature therapists should dare to open up their own internal world to the work, so that the therapy is deeper and richer. She describes in plain, accessible language, and with clinical illustrations, how this may be accomplished. Attention is given to the controversial issue of disorders of personality, the best way to do short term therapy in the NHS, the differences between couple and individual therapy, and how defence mechanisms and the developmental perspective operate in the consulting room of a modern self-reflective practitioner.

This book, written in plain language by an experienced, psychoanalytically-orientated therapist, is aimed at lay readers who wish to understand how couples consciously and unconsciously operate in successful and unsuccessful partnerships. It covers the central concepts involved, illustrated by (disguised) case material. The book will also be invalu