New Book, Fighting Depression Without Drugs

[From review]

Matt Haig, a British novelist, had a nervous breakdown at 24 and slipped into a suicidal depression. But when medications left him feeling even worse, he decided to battle against the disease on his own. Within a decade, he had climbed his way out of the depths, a harrowing journey he chronicles in his new book, “Reasons To Stay Alive”(Penguin Books, out now). The 40-year-old father of two tells The Post how he’s thriving despite mental illness.
[. . .]
There is something therapeutic about reading. For a story to be a story, it has to involve change to a character or a situation. When you are stuck in a situation or in that moment, just believing in change is nourishing. Even if it’s not good or positive, just the idea of it is positive.
[. . .]
I found the writing experience very therapeutic. Being published isn’t always good for your mental health, because you are suddenly very exposed and there’s a fear of criticism. But the act of writing was.
Slowly, the fog lifted.
[. . .]
And many therapists I’ve spoken to since say I was actually getting therapy — I was just doing it to myself, by making myself face my own fears.
But I wouldn’t say that I’m cured. I still get bouts of anxiety, but I know how to manage them. I just allow myself to feel them. It’s not going to kill me. It’s unpleasant, but it’s a way to cope.
I thought that by my mid-20s, there was going to be nothing great in my life again. But there has been far more happiness and far more meaningful relationships after the illness.

http://nypost.com/2016/03/11/how-i-successfully-fought-my-depression-without-medication/

How I successfully fought my depression without medication
By Kirsten Fleming
New York Post
March 11, 2016 | 1:59pm

Silicon Valley Geniuses Awkward With Women Socially

[From article]
While being a virgin at 40 may be extreme, Dan is one of many tech guys who are driving business for the sex therapists of the San Francisco Bay Area. The counselors I’ve spoken with say that anywhere between 50 to 90 percent of their clientele are tech workers, and the vast majority of them are heterosexual men. (Tech employees were estimated in 2011 to account for only 12 percent of workers in the Bay Area.)
This is in part a result of techies’ higher-than-average salaries, which allow them to pay for therapy, particularly when it comes to non-traditional counseling that isn’t covered by insurance. There’s something else at play here, though: In general, tech workers are more vulnerable to issues around love and intimacy, according to several local sex therapists I’ve interviewed. The reasons for this are wide-ranging, but in Dan’s particular case, it resulted from being tagged as a prodigy at a young age. He excelled in science and was encouraged to pursue it to the exclusion of all else.
[. . .]
“To his mind, and his processing, there was no desire to prioritize anything other than that.” She spends much of their sessions trying to teach him the very basics of talking to women.
That’s a frequent focus for the sex therapists in Silicon Valley and surrounding areas. “[These men] often spend their time in environments that are mostly male, like in school and tech offices,” explains another therapist, Celeste Hirschman. “So they don’t have a lot of practice just relating to women, period, let alone learning how to meet, pickup, seduce, touch.”
[. . .]
Another common issue that these therapists encounter with tech clients is they treat sex like a line of broken code in need of debugging, or a mathematical equation.
[. . .]
She’s seeing a couple now in which both partners are techies and the wife only wants to have quickies so that she can get back to her long to-do list.

http://www.vocativ.com/culture/society/the-sex-therapists-of-silicon-valley/

Sex And The Valley: Tech Guys Seek Expert Love Advice From Therapists
Tech guys are flocking to experts to learn how to talk to women and fix sexless marriages
Author Tracy Clark-Flory
Posted: 05/29/15 09:05 EDT

Psychiatrists Messed Up Worse Than Patients

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2287938/Does-shrink-MORE-problems-Fly-wall-exposes-troubled-private-lives-therapists.html

Does your shrink have MORE problems than you? Fly-on-the-wall show exposes the troubled private lives of three therapists
By SADIE WHITELOCKS
Daily Mail (UK)
PUBLISHED: 14:28 EST, 4 March 2013 | UPDATED: 14:29 EST, 4 March 2013

Does Talking About Trauma Help?

[From article]
"society has absorbed the deeply misguided idea that verbally regurgitating one’s trauma is the only way to heal.
[. . .]
“When you experience a life-altering event, or series of experiences, it marks you as a person and will affect your whole life,” Goren says. “But it does not have to damage you.”

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/is_it_better_not_to_talk_about_it_yRdhx5TWQXdTluHZbObkAP

Is it better not to talk about it?
Maureen Callahan
New York Post
Last Updated: 10:44 AM, September 11, 2011
Posted: 3:45 AM, September 11, 2011