DEALING WITH DEPRESSION
Trusting God through the dark times
By Sarah Collins and Jayne Haynes . Christian Focus. 128 pages. £4.99
ISBN 978 1 845 506 339
Depression is an increasingly common condition and Christians get it. Christian workers often feel out of their depth pastorally. Friends and family feel distressed and bewildered. There may be unease about whether the problem is spiritual or physical. This little book has been written to help.
Its authors, a former Christian worker and a GP, give a concise, well balanced and easy-to-follow account of both medical and spiritual aspects of depression and how it can be understood and managed. There are helpful testimonies of sufferers sharing their experience enabling the reader to get inside the condition and gain some appreciation of the range of experiences depressive illness brings. There is also very practical chapter on how to help a depressed person and the pitfalls to avoid, which in my experience is right on target.