YouTube Clip of the Week: “Eye On America: Recovery”
Thursday, December 18th, 2008One of the most upsetting aspects to depression is that you feel a complete loss of control. Everything is the most horrible thing that ever happened in your life and you are incurable. This sense of being completely out of control is an illusion caused by depression, extreme stress or general anxiety disorder (GAD).
In 1937 (long before Prozac), Austrian doctor Abraham A, Low develpoed a method by which the patient could identify a true emergency from their symtpms. This eventually became called Recovery or “the Recovery Meathod”. He helped start an international organization called Recovery, Inc. (but is now called Revovery International).
There is some squabble over whether Dr. Low predated other cognitive-behavior therpaies. When his works were published, they were generally ignored by the psychatric community. Dr. Low was appreciated by his pateints, but not from his on peers.
Anyway, the group finally has a channel on YouTube. Here’s their first video:
Recovery (or RI) is NOT a substitute for doctors or medication. You will still suffer relapses every now and then, but that’s normal.
Basically, all you do is learn to take a deep breath and get some perscpective of everyday events that can really get under your skin. For example, say you’re convinced you can never be cured. That would be called “imagination on fire” — you really don’t have evidence that you can’t be cured. Then you know that you are exhibiting a symptom — the fear of not being curable — and your fears are not facts.
There’s a lot more to it than that. You’re encouraged to go to weekly or monthly meetings because it gets you out of the house and socializing with others as well as learning when to spot fears that you mistake as facts.
Also, just a quick announcement that in addition to Dealing With Headaches, I’ve taken on another 451 Press blog, YouTube Digger. I’ll try to keep the depression-related YouTube clips to this site, though. Well, I’ll try, anyway. I’m not promising anything.
If you glance on over to the right of this post, you’ll see the usual listing of categories most covered in the blog. A lot of them have pretty strange names. The ones that don’t were ones just recently added or were required categories by 451 Press (this blog’s host). I’ve only been the blogger for Depression Talk a short while and I’m struggling to understand how to interpet these categories.