Rethinking Depression: How to Shed Mental Health Labels and Create Personal Meaning

Rethinking Depression: How to Shed Mental Health Labels and Create Personal Meaning

In this provocative and pathbreaking distillation of a career spent working with individuals seeking help with mood and motivation, Eric Maisel reveals the implications of one of the most dramatic cultural shifts of our time. In recent decades, much of the unhappiness inherent in the human condition has been monetized and labeled as the disease of depression and related “disorders.” Maisel persuasively critiques this sickness model and prescribes a potent new therapy. The existential cognitive-behavioral therapy (ECBT) he details here marries the proven methods of CBT with the powerful meaning-based orientation of existential therapy. The result is a revolutionary reimagining of life’s difficulties and a liberating model of self-care that optimizes the innate human ability to create meaning and seize opportunity — in any circumstance.