The Opposite of Depression
What My Work with Suicidal Patients Has Taught Me about Life, Hope, and How to Flourish
Tyndale · 2024
I treat patients with the most advanced brain stimulation protocols available. Many of them recover in days after years of failed treatment. Watching this happen, I noticed something the research papers rarely mention: relieving depression does not automatically produce a flourishing life. Patients who were no longer suicidal were often still adrift without purpose, connection, or a clear sense of what to do with a life they had not expected to still be living.
This book is about what comes after. What does it mean to flourish, not merely to stop suffering? What do my most severely ill patients, once they recover, teach the rest of us about how to live well?
I draw on clinical experience, the latest research in neuroscience and psychology, ancient wisdom traditions including, my own Christian faith, and my years of work with patients at the hardest edges of human suffering. The book covers the role of emotions, sleep, exercise, nutrition, purpose, guilt, and hope. Each chapter offers practical steps, but the argument behind them is philosophical: the opposite of depression isn't un-depression, it's flourishing.
Reviews and endorsements
"Read this beautiful rendition of how to meaningfully respond to depression — and discover life and the beauty that lies therein in ways you might never before have imagined."
— Curt Thompson, MD, author of The Soul of Desire and Anatomy of the Soul
"The Opposite of Depression is far more than a book about mental health (though it's that too); it brilliantly inverts the contours of depression to reveal the way to a flourishing life. If you're depressed, read this book. If you're not depressed, read this book."
— John Ortberg, founder of Become New; author of Eternity Is Now in Session
Where to get it
→ Amazon (hardcover, paperback, Kindle, audiobook)
→ Tyndale (publisher page)
→ Christianbook.com
→ Your local bookstore can order it using ISBN 978-1-4964-5535-2
If you would like me to speak to your organization, church, conference, or medical community about the themes in this book, contact my team.