Brighter Days Ahead: Leaving Depression Behind Through Innovative New Treatments

Brighter Days Ahead: Leaving Depression Behind Through Innovative New Treatments

Depression is not what you think it is. Yes, it is a downward spiral of misery, self-doubt, angst, and apathy, but the cause is not a personality failing or a lack of serotonin. Have medications designed to change serotonin or dopamine levels in your brain helped you? Depression does, indeed, result from changes in your brain, but the nature of these transformations will shock and surprise you. This life-changing book will help you see depression in a new light…leading you to powerfully effective treatments. Psychiatrist, brain scientist, and inventor, Dr. Theodore Henderson paints a real-world picture of depression with moving stories and full color illustrations that makes the science underlying this common mental health condition come to life. Drawing upon almost two decades of intensive personalized treatment of hundreds of patients, Dr. Henderson deftly combines brain science with evocative case histories to explains exactly how the brain changes as a result of depression and how less well-known contemporary treatments for it work to reverse these changes. Gone are the chemical imbalance theories. Gone are the pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps admonishments. Using the example of the powerful antidepressant effects of ketamine infusion therapy as a window into understanding not only what depression does to the brain, but how neuroplasticity can reverse it, often permanently, Dr. Henderson offers the reader even more information about this complex condition. He introduces other novel and powerful treatments for depression, as well as addressing childhood trauma, brain injury, inflammation, and the importance of mindfulness. In this deeply informed book, Dr. Henderson guides the reader to understanding the brain, depression, and effective solutions in a sometimes poignant, sometimes gritty, no-holds barred, real-world look at depression and recovery.