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Amazon Price: $11.79
Average Customer Rating: 
(5 reviews)
Editorial Review: In The Depression Advantage, Tom Wootton reveals his insight about the surprising advantages of the depressive state, with the view that people with mental conditions can lead extraordinary lives. Tom has developed an entirely new system of representing the broad spectrum of emotional states experienced by people with mental conditions. His revolutionary ideas about redefining functionality and scale provide a powerful set of tools for those looking to turn their perceived 'illness' into a vehicle for a rich, fulfilling and successful life.
Drawing from historical and literary examples ranging from the lives of the Saints to Buddhist parables to pop culture heroes like the X-Men, The Depression Advantage demonstrates that physical, mental, emotional and spiritual pain can be a catalyst for personal growth and transcendent understanding.
Customer Reviews:
5 of 11 found this review helpful:
A Sceptic's Caution, 2007-12-26
This book is suspiciously similar to Mr Wootton's earlier self proclaimed "revolutionary" self published work The Bipolar Advantage. We can perhaps anticipate that Wootton's next effort will be "The Schizophrenic Advantage." While introspection and an acceptance of suffering are both valuable traits it seems unlikely that Wootton has much insight in these areas, as can be confirmed if you scan the the online content here at Amazon.
The obvious downside of depression is the paralysis and inability to function or enjoy life that characterizes full clincal depression and the risk of suicide. These are the obvious reasons that Prozac and its ilk are such widely used medications for depression. For an eloquent personal account of depression I recommend William Styron's Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness. For a more thougtful analysis of the virtues of appropriate sadness you should consider The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder.
The most helpful review of "Bipolar Advantage" (rated helpful by 76 readers) completely trashed it. Thanks Hieronymo!! Perhaps "The Depression Advantage" was written when Wootton was in a more introspective or depressive mood and perhaps Wootton has learned to write since his earlier effort. I suggest that if you scan the online content you will find the prose flat and the ideas trite. Curiously, other reviewers find it helpful.
3 of 3 found this review helpful:
Great hope for living a full life with depression, 2007-11-29
Finally, a book about depression that doesn't try to make you replace "sad" thoughts with "happy" thoughts. It was really refreshing to find a book so down to earth about the realities of depression that also gave me great hope for living a full life even though I have depression. This book explores what it really means to live with depression full time and not be afraid of it. I especially liked the examples of the lives of the Saints and what it meant to them to live with the symptoms of depression.
7 of 9 found this review helpful:
Really makes an impact, 2007-11-13
This book really had an impact on my life. I've had depressive bipolar states for as long as I can remember and dealing with this illness has become the most challenging thing in my life. When I started reading the book I was skeptical that there could be anything positive in depression, but I was looking for anything positive that might help me. Tom Wootton has created that in The Depression Advantage. It taught me to cope more effectively with my depression and how to find a spiritual richness that I never knew could exist in the midst of my depression. This book is not a fake cure all book. It's honest and straight forward and Tom writes in an easy to read style that makes it seem like the author is right there with you. I hope you will take the opportunity to give this book a try. I did and it helped me enormously.
8 of 8 found this review helpful:
A revolutionary view of depression, 2007-10-17
As a retired pastor (www.sausalitopresbyterian), I have encountered dozens of people suffering from depression or who are bi-polar. Past wisdom and practice was to medicate them with strong drugs that in many cases rendered them unable to live anything resembling a normal life.
Tom Wootton is literally changing all of that. His approach is so revolutionary that, at first, most people, therapists and clients alike are surprised by it and must adjust to this new paradigm.
But, Tom is convincing an ever-broadening group of both professionals and their bi-polar and depressed clients that they don't need to consider themselves hopeless or helpless.
In his book, "The Depression Advantage" he has created a spiritual guidebook through the landscape of depression as well a barometer of where those feelings fall on the emotional spectrum. Where previous books on depression focus on climbing out of the condition, The Depression Advantage asks us to look at our surroundings and find our bearings, even while depressed.
Tom explores the depressed state as catalyst. A catalyst for seeking help, for connecting with others, for discovering self, and for finding new levels of functionality. Most importantly, he discovers the transformative powers of depression on the lives of those affected, using the lives of the saints such as Teresa of Avila, St. Anthony, Milarepa, Saint John of the Cross and Saint Francis of Assisi as examples.
Tom weaves a story of spiritual growth and even ecstasy obtained through great suffering. These examples form a pattern of hope for those who have been through the throes of depression and who may experience it in the future. Ultimately the stories he recounts are tales of joy and transcendent communion with a higher spirit that resides within each of us.
Buy and read this book and encourage those who suffer from depression to do so too.
16 of 18 found this review helpful:
Acceptance and Awareness, 2007-09-12
There is something truly inspiring and revolutionary about this book and its message - that there are advantages to be gained from depression. Recovery, self awareness, spirituality, perception of the light within the darkness. These can be the gifts leading to recovery, a condition made possible through our perserverance in the face of "almost" insurmountable despair. Tom Wootton has scored a major win in our - and I mean consumer and nonconsumer alike - battle to understand in depth some of the mystifying choices laid before us on the path of mental "illness", esp. as it pertains to those of us living with a bipolar condition. It is up to us to do something with our lives, to not give in absolutely to the absolute immobility of depression. The author goes with honesty, clarity, and self revelation, into the heart of depressive episodes, offering sufferers and their companions a new definition for functionality ("Redefining Functionality") which helped me gain a wonderful new perspective on my condition. He speaks of the great spiritual masters in history - St. Teresa, St. Anthony, Milarepa, St. John of the Cross, & St. Francis of Assisi - and of their own paths of transformation. Through their mental and emotional pain, through their examples, we have been given great evidence of recovery. And through the courage of people like Tom Wootton who share their deepest personal history, we have tools we can choose to use to our advantage. As he states so eloquently, "Through brain research, genetics, modern psychology, and the synthesis of knowledge from cultures across the globe, we stand at the crossroads of a new paradigm of mental health. I believe it is one that will change mental illness into an advantage for everyone." In a chapter discussing what we can learn from others' examples, he tells us that "They have already shown us the way...We have tools they never had...We don't have to suffer to succeed...We don't have to be depressed again...Our condition demands introspection and change." He outlines how we get there from here, wherever here is for us, to recovery.
I hope that this book stirs discussion among NAMI groups, Peer Recovery Specialists, Psychiatrists and other mental health care workers, DBSA groups, and all those who have yet to find the advantages that await them within. The culture of perfectionism that dictates a world without people like me in it needs to pick up this book and educate itself. I also hope that reading this book will induce more readership of Wootton's previous material, esp. "The Bipolar Advantage". It is crucial that people realize, wake up to the fact that being a person with a mental condition is not a death sentence, does not have to be held over their head as a stigma, they do not deserve to be eradicated from the earth through genetic manipulation. We have gifts beyond price if we can only learn to spin the straw into gold. Tom Wootton lucidly and in detail explains how this is possible if we choose to do the work. This book is inspiring, sure to provoke discussion, thoughtful, and very well written. Bravo!
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