Breaking Through Depression

New Treatments and Discoveries for Healing

By: Philip Gold

Narrated by: Joshua Kane

Brought to you by Penguin.

We are often told that depression is 'all in the mind'. So why are so many of its symptoms felt in our bodies? Why can depression have such a profound impact on physical as well as mental health - from coronary disease to stroke? Philip Gold, a world-renowned expert on this devastating illness, shows how depression is a stress response gone awry, affecting the whole body, not just the brain.

Drawing on both neuroscience and endocrinology, Breaking Through Depression reveals the latest research on how depression influences every aspect of our health, from the chemical messengers that control appetite to the brain's structure and functionality. Packed with startling insights - such as how depression disrupts the twenty-four-hour sleep-wake cycle, interacting with the stress system differently depending on whether someone experiences melancholic or atypical symptoms - this book gives us the fullest picture yet of the disease. Gold transforms our understanding of different forms of depression, including related conditions such as bipolar and seasonal affective disorders, and its huge impact on global health.

Timely, urgent and important, Breaking Through Depression articulates the workings of this misunderstood illness in compelling and often surprising detail, introducing the newest innovations in treatment - from low energy lasers to genetic solutions and rapidly acting antidepressants which restore damaged brain cells - that offer hope for healing.

'Compassionate and wide-ranging' The Times

'Masterful . . . distils extensive clinical experience, personal insights, and the scientific achievements of a professional lifetime, to offer a lucid analysis of what it will take to understand, treat, and ultimately defeat what is todays "cancer of the self"' Peter Whybrow, Founding Member and Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists

©2023 Philip Gold (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

Compassionate and wide-ranging . . . a leading researcher reveals promising new treatments for depression (Rhys Blakely)

Gold makes a convincing argument for his theory . . . Many sections of Breaking Through Depression read like a medical memoir, intercutting stories from the frontline of this research with detailed scientific explanations. I found his descriptions of the condition to be painfully precise (David Robson)

Beautiful, humane, a masterpiece . . . exquisitely delves into one of the most pervasive causes of misery in the world . . . Those who suffer will be rewarded with a deep understanding of depression and newly available treatments, as well as with realistic hope (George P. Chrousos)

Dr. Gold combines biological research and expertise in psychotherapy in a way that makes him the preeminent expert on depression in the world . . . an unprecedented resource for those struggling with depression and for those trying to better understand depression in order to help friends and family members struggling with this dreaded disease. I recommend this stunning book with the highest levels of enthusiasm (Julio Licinio)

Depression, Gold believes is the normal human stress response gone horribly wrong, wreaking havoc on both the brain and the body... Help, though, is at hand (Michael Eisen)