These notes are intended for readers who would like more technical information or ideas to follow up.
There is now much information on the Internet about depression. Websites such as beyondblue (www.beyondblue.org.au) and Living Life to the Full (www.livinglifetothefull.com) are excellent sources for further reading.
A good basic book is Power, M. (ed.) (2004). Mood Disorders: A Handbook of Science and Practice. Chichester: Wiley. For my own technical work on depression, see Gilbert, P. (2007) Psychotherapy and Counselling for Depression (3rd edition). London: Sage.
I go into more detail on these themes in a recent book: Gilbert, P. (2009). The Compassionate Mind: A New Approach to Life Challenges. London: Constable & Robinson. I am also just completing a technical book (Compassion-Focused Therapy: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice) for Routledge.
1 Depue, R.A. and Morrone-Strupinsky, J.V. (2005). A neurobehavioral model of affiliative bonding. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28, 313– 395.
2 LeDoux, J. (1998). The Emotional Brain. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
3 For a good, accessible account of the evolutionary approach to depression see Keedwell, P. (2007). How Sadness Survived: The Evolu -tionary Basis of Depression. Oxford: Radcliffe Publishing. I have also discussed this in more detail in Gilbert, P. (2007). Psychotherapy and Counselling for Depression (3rd edition). London: Sage.
4 Siegle, G., Carter, C.S. and Thase, M.E. (2006). Use of fMRI to predict recovery from unipolar depression with cognitive behavior therapy. American Journal of Psychiatry, 163, 735–738.
5 Carter, C.S. (1998). Neuroendocrine perspectives on social attachment and love. Psychoneuroendocrinlogy, 23, 779–818. See also Wang, S. (2005). A conceptual framework for integrating research related to the physiology of compassion and the wisdom of Buddhist teachings. In Gilbert, P. (ed.) Compassion: Conceptualisations, Research and Use in Psychotherapy (pp. 75–120). London: Brunner-Routledge.
1 Perhaps one of the most comprehensive books on emotions and their functions is by Oatley, K., Keltner, D. and Jenkins, J. (2006). Understanding Emotions (2nd revd edition). Oxford: Blackwell.
2 Fredrickson, B.L. (1998). What good are positive emotions? Review of General Psychology, 2, 300–319. See also our work: Gilbert, P., McEwan, K., Mitra, R., Franks, L., Richter, A. and Rockliff, H. (2008) Feeling safe and content: A specific affect regulation system? Relationship to depression, anxiety, stress and self-criticism. Journal of Positive Psychology, 3,182–191.
3 As noted in the last chapter, a good accessible account of the evolutionary approach to depression is the book by Keedwell (2007). I have also discussed this in more detail in Gilbert, P. (2007) Psychotherapy and Counselling for Depression (3rd edition). London: Sage.
4 This view was popularized by Nesse, R.M. (2000). Is depression an adaptation? Archives of General Psychiatry, 57, 14–20. I have discussed this in Gilbert, P. (2007) Psychotherapy and Counselling for Depression (3rd edition). London: Sage.
5 My recent book (Gilbert 2009) covers some of these ideas. A very readable book is by Smith, E.O. (2002). When Culture and Biology Collide: Why we are Stressed, Depressed and Self-Obsessed. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
1 A good overview and guide to this work can be found in Caspi, A., Sugden, K., Moffitt, T.E. et al. (2003). Influence of life stress on depression: Moderation by a polymorphism in the 5-HTT gene. Science 301, 386–398. For a more general discussion see Caspi, A. and Moffitt, T.E. (2006). Gene-environment interactions in psychiatry: Joining forces with neuroscience. Nature Reviews: Neuroscience 7, 583–590.
2 Panskepp, J. (1998). Affective Neuroscience. New York: Oxford University Press.
3 Cozolino, L. (2007). The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment and the Developing Brain. New York: Norton. See also Gerhardt, S. (2004). Why Love Matters. How Affection Shapes a Baby’s Brain. London: Routledge.
4 Lazarus, R.S. (1999). Stress and Emotions: A New Synthesis. London: Free Association Press. An accessible book, offering an excellent overview of his work for those who would like to read more on the subject.
1 Beck, A.T. (1976). Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders. New York: Intemational Universities Press. Leahy, R. L and Holland, S.J. (2000). Treatment Plans and Interventions for Depression and Anxiety Disorders: New York: Guilford Press.
2 Perry, B.D., Pollard, R.A., Blakley, T.L., Baker, W.L. and Vigilante, D. (1995). Childhood trauma, the neurobiology of adaptation and ‘use-dependent’ development of the brain: How ‘states’ become ‘traits’. Infant Mental Health Journal 16, 271–291.
3 Gerhardt, S. (2004). Why Love Matters. How Affection Shapes a Baby’s Brain. London: Routledge. Cozolino, L. (2007). The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment and the Developing Brain. New York: Norton.
4 Caspi, A. and Moffitt, T.E. (2006). Gene-environment interactions in psychiatry: Joining forces with neuroscience. Nature Reviews: Neuroscience 7, 583–590.
5 There are many books now on childhood sexual abuse, because sadly it is common in depressed people. The present book does not go into detail on this but you might like to look, for example, at Ainscough, C. and Toon, K. (2000). Breaking Free Workbook: Practical Help for Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse. London: Sheldon Press. We also know that various forms of abuse, emotional neglect and hurting can leave people vulnerable (not just sexual abuse). See for example Bifulco, A. and Moran, P. (1998). Wednesday’s Child: Research into Women’s Experiences of Neglect and Abuse in Childhood, and Adult Depression. London: Routledge. For some more recent research see Teicher, M.H., Samson, J.A., Polcari, A. and McGreenery, C.E. (2006). Sticks and stones and hurtful words: Relative effects of various forms of childhood maltreatment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 163, 993–1000.
6 There is now considerable evidence of these parenting styles and their impact on people. This research has been pioneered by attachment theorists. An excellent review of this work, written by the leading researchers in this area can be found in Mikulincer, M. and Shaver, P.R. (2007). Attachment in Adulthood: Structure, Dynamics, and Change. New York: Guilford.
7 Brown, G.W. and Harris, T.O. (1978). The Social Origins of Depression. London: Tavistock. Brown, G.W., Harris, T.O. and Hepworth, C. (1995). Loss, humiliation and entrapment among women developing depression: A patient and non-patient comparison. Psychological Medicine 25, 7–21.
8 Champion, L. and Power, M. (1995). Social and cognitive approaches to depression: Towards a new synthesis. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 34, 485–503.
1 The idea that automatic thoughts arise from our core beliefs and attitudes and underpin and maintain depression was developed by the psychiatrist Aaron Beck: see Beck, A.T., Rush, A.J., Shaw, B.F. and Emery, G. (1979). Cognitive Therapy of Depression. New York: Wiley. The British government’s assessment committee (called NICE) that looked into the value of different therapies for depression found that there is good evidence to suggest cognitive behavior therapy helps a number of people with depression, but not all. Beck also understood the importance of understanding how our minds have evolved as being central to understanding depression: see Beck, A.T. (1987). Cognitive models of depression. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy: An International Quarterly, 1, 5–38.
2 Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgement. Psychological Review, 108, 814–834. Baldwin, M.W. and Dandeneau, S.D. (2005). Understanding and modifying the relational schemas underlying insecurity. In Baldwin, M.W. (ed.) Interpersonal Cognition (pp.33–61). New York: Guilford. Mark Baldwin is at the forefront of research on how faces affect our feelings and his book on interpersonal cognition is well worth a look. To find out more about his research on games and emotion visit his websites, www.selfesteemgames.mcgill.ca and www.mindhabits.com
3 Leahy, R.L. (2002). A model of emotional schemas. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 9, 177–171.
1 This account is a modified version of the chapter that appears in my book The Compassionate Mind: A New Approach to Life Challenges, mentioned earlier, but here we will be more focused on depression.
2 Williams, M., Teasdale, J., Segal, Z. and Kabat-Zinn, J. (2007). The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself From Chronic Unhappiness. New York: Guilford. This is the first book on mindfulness dedicated to depression and comes with a CD to guide your practice. These authors are well respected international researchers in depression and mindfulness.
3 Keep in mind that if you would like to know more about this and get more into the deep aspects of practice then you would benefit from guided practice by a trained teacher or trainer. However, to get you started there are many good books that outline the basic practice of mindfulness. Some I have found helpful are Gunaratana, B.H. (2002). Mindfulness in Plain English. Boston: Wisdom Publications; Kabat-Zinn, J. (2005). Coming to our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness. New York: Piatkus; Brantley, J. (2003). Calming Your Anxious Mind: How Mindfulness and Compassion Can Free You from Anxiety, Fear and Panic. New York: Harbinger.
4 Gilbert, P. (2007). Overcoming Depression: Talks with your Therapist CD. London: Constable & Robinson.
5 Gilbert, P. and Procter, S. (2006). Compassionate mind training for people with high shame and self-criticism: A pilot study of a group therapy approach. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy 13, 353–379. If you would like to try some CDs that take you through various mindful exercises then Chodron, P. (2007). How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind offers an extensive course, or if you want something shorter you might like Bodhipaksa (2005) Guided Meditations for Busy People. For videos and websites on mindfulness and compassion, see the Compassionate Mind Foundation website, www.compassionatemind.co.uk.
1 You can read more about self-compassion on Kristen Neff’s website at www.self-compassion.org. Neff is a major international researcher in self-compassion. Look at our own Compassionate Mind Foundation website at www.compassioantemind.co.uk.
2 Lutz, A., Brefczynski-Lewis, J., Johnstone, T. and Davidson, R.J. (2008). Regulation of the neural circuitry of emotion by compassion meditation: Effects of meditative expertise. Public Library of Science 3, 1–5. Rein, G., Atkinson, M. and McCraty, R. (1995). The physiological and psychological effects of compassion and anger. Journal for the Advancement of Medicine 8, 87–105. These researchers found that anger images and fantasies had a detrimental effect on the functioning of the immune system, whereas compassion-focused fantasies and images had a very positive effect. You’ll also find a review of lots of studies of how mind training affects the body in Begley, S. (2007). Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain. New York: Ballantine Books. Another book you may want to look at is Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. New York: Penguin.
3 The creation of compassionate imagery for the purposes of self-development has a long history. A good but very technical book is Leighton, T.D. (2003). Faces of Compassion: Classic Bodhisattva Archetypes and their Modern Expression. Boston: Wisdom Publications. Another good book that covers these imagery exercises is Vessantara (1993). Meeting the Buddhas: A guide to Buddha, Bodhisattvas, and Tantric Deities. London: Wisdom Books.
4 Frederick, C. and McNeal, S. (1999). Inner Strengths: Contemporary Psychotherapy and Hypnosis for Ego Strengthening. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. An interesting study is Wheatley, J., Brewin, C.R., Patel, T. et al. (2007). ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’: Imagery re-scripting of intrusive sensory memories. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry 39, 371–385.
5 Dandeneau, S.D., Baldwin, M.R., Baccus, J.R., Sakellaropoulo, M.P. and Pruessner J.C. (2007). Cutting stress off at the pass: Reducing vigilance and responsiveness to social threat by manipulating attention. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 93, 651–666.
6 Childre, D. and Martin, H. (2000). The HeartMath Solution. San Francisco: Harper Collins.
1 Beck was one of the first to point out that the state of depression influences how we attend, think and reason about things in our lives – depression gives us negative biases. See Beck, A.T., Rush, A.J., Shaw, B.F. and Emery, G. (1979). Cognitive Therapy of Depression. New York: Wiley. There are now many self-help books that help people work on these biases. For example Williams, C.J. (2001). Overcoming Depression: A Five Areas Approach. London: Arnold. Leahy, R. (2006). The Worry Cure. New York: Piatkus Books is useful if you tend to ruminate and fret about things (don’t we all!). There is also a CD that goes with this. A helpful guide from a slightly different approach is Marra, T. (2003). The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Workbook for Overcoming Depression and Anxiety. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.
A recently published self-help book for depression is Foreman, E.I., Elliott, C. and Smith, L. (2008). Overcoming Depression for Dummies. Chichester: Wiley.
The CD that goes with this book, Overcoming Depression: Talks with Your Therapist, contains various talks and exercises.
1 The books listed in the notes for Chapter 9 are also relevant here.
2 Gilbert, P. (1998). The evolved basis and adaptive functions of cognitive distortions. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 71 447–463 gives a technical and evolutionary approach to how cognitive biases work, while Tobena, A., Marks, I. and Dar, R. (1999). Advantages of bias and prejudice: An exploration of their neurocognitive templates. Neuroscience and Behavioral Reviews,23, 1047–1058 offers a very good, detailed approach to how and why so much of our thinking is biased.
1 Pennebaker, J.W. (1997). Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions. New York: Guilford. More technical is Smyth, J.M. and Pennebaker, J.W. (eds) (2008). Boundary conditions of expressive writing. Health Psychology (Special Section). British Journal of Health Psychology 13, 1–95.
2 Forgiveness research has taken off recently: see Worthington, E.L., O’Connor, L. E., Berry, J.W., Sharp, C., Murray, R. and Yi, E. (2005). Compassion and forgiveness: Implications for psychotherapy. In Gilbert, P. (ed). Compassion: Conceptualisations, Research and Use in Psychotherapy (pp. 168–192). London: Routledge. Worthington’s website (www.forgiving.org) provides a lot more information on how forgiveness can help us in many ways but is not submissive acceptance.
3 Lyubomirsky, S. (2007). The How of Happiness. New York: Sphere. A very readable book that makes accessible a lot of the research on gratitude and appreciation and how and why they can help us develop feelings of well-being and counteract depression.
1 Martell, C.R., Addis, M.E., and Jacobson, N.S. (2001). Depression in Context: Strategies for Guided Action. New York: Norton. A technical study on this approach is by Dimidjian, S., Hollon, S.D., Dobson, K.S. et al. (2006). Randomized trail of behavioral activation, cognitive therapy, and antidepressant medication in the acute treatment of adults with major depression. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 74, 658–670.
2 Veal, D. and Willson, R. (2008). Manage You Mood. London: Constable & Robinson.
3 Ross, J. (2003). The Mood Cure. London: Thorsons. Although it is a bit hyped it seems good to me on the issues of diet and supplements – I found it interesting and well written, although the evidence is still developing so I can’t vouch for that.
4 A good book is Dr Alan Stewart’s Tired All the Time.
1 Self-criticism has been associated with a lot of mental health difficulties including eating disorders, alcohol problems, anxiety and of course depression. For a technical account of this, see Gilbert, P. and Irons, C. (2005). Focused therapies and compassionate mind training for shame and self attacking. In Gilbert, P. (ed.) Compassion: Concept ualisations, Research and Use in Psychotherapy (pp. 263–325). London: Routledge. We also know that self-criticism is not just about negative thoughts but it is people’s feelings about themselves that is crucial. See Whelton, W.J. and Greenberg, L.S. (2005). Emotion in self-criticism. Personality and Individual Differences, 38, 1583–1595. There are now many self-help books on self-criticism and how to heal it.
2 A classic text in this regard is Lasch, C. (1979). Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. New York: Norton. See also McKinley, N.M. (1999). Women and objectified body consciousness: Mothers’ and daughters’ body experience in cultural, developmental and familial context. Developmental Psychology 35, 760–769.
There have been many studies showing the negative effect of the media on self-esteem. See for example Mazzeo, S.E., Trace, S.E., Mitchell, K.S. and Walker Gow, R. (2007). Effects of a reality TV cosmetic surgery makeover program on eating disordered attitudes and behaviors. Eating Behaviors 8, 390–397. Basically these programmes can lead people to compare themselves unfavourably with others. James, O. (1997) Britain on the Couch. London: Arrow Books also goes into this in excellent detail and you can watch the videos of two documentaries on his website (www.selfishcapitalist.com).
3 Gilbert, P., Broomhead, C., Irons, C. et al. (2007). Striving to avoid inferiority: Scale development and its relationship to depression, anxiety and stress. British Journal of Social Psychology 46, 633–648.
4 Work by Cory Gelsma found that feeling less favoured as a child was highly linked to depression. Gilbert, P. and Gelsma, C. (1999). Recall of favouritism in relation to psychopathology. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 38, 357–373.
5 Bernice Andrews has looked at the relationship between child sexual abuse and chronic depression. See for example Andrews, B. (1998). Shame and childhood abuse. In Gilbert, P. and Andrews, B. (eds) Shame: Interpersonal Behavior, Psychopathology and Culture (pp. 176– 190). New York: Oxford University Press.
6 There are now many reports and self-help books on the theme of childhood sexual abuse. One that gives a number of exercises to work through is Ainscough, C. and Toon, K. (2000). Breaking Free Workbook: Practical Help for Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse. London: Sheldon.
7 Gilbert, P., Clarke, M., Kempel, S., Miles, J.N.V. and Irons, C. (2004). Criticizing and reassuring oneself: An exploration of forms, style and reasons in female students. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 43, 31–50. For a review see Gilbert and Irons (2005), mentioned earlier.
See the notes for Chapter 13.
See the notes for Chapters 9–13.
1 This chapter follows a clinical and evolutionary approach to the importance of relationships: see Gilbert, P. (2007). Psychotherapy and Counselling for Depression. London: Sage. There is much research now showing how relationships are important in depression. One well-researched approach to depression is McCullough, J.P.Jr (2000). Treatment for Chronic Depression: Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy. New York: Guilford. This teaches people what to think about and how to act in relationships in order to feel more in control and build helpful relationships. There is a good review of evidence of the importance of relationships to our well-being in Gurman, A.S. and Jacobson, N.S. (eds.) (2002). Clinical Handbook of Couple Therapy (3rd edition). New York: Guilford Press. It is also the case that many of our emotions are evolved to operate in and through social relationships. See for example Tracy, J.L., Robins, R.W. and Tangney, J.P. (eds) (2007). The Self-Conscious Emotions: Theory and Research (pp. 283–309). New York: Guilford.
Social neuroscience is a new branch of neuroscience that focuses on the importance of relationships to the way our brain works and our mental health. A good introduction to this is Cacioppo, J.T., Berston, G.G., Sheridan, J.F. and McClintock, M.K. (2000). Multilevel integrative analysis of human behavior: Social neuroscience and the complementing nature of social and biological approaches. Psychological Bulletin 126, 829–843. You might also enjoy Cozolino, L. (2007). The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment and the Developing Brain. New York: Norton. You might also want to revisit Chapter 2. This chapter just touches the tip of a large and growing iceberg of knowledge about the importance of how we respond to and think about social relationships.
2 A very readable introduction to mind reading for the general reader is O’Connell, S. (1998). Mindreading: How We Learn to Love and Lie. New York: Arrow Books. There is also a new therapy approach called mentalizing which helps people to develop their abilities for empathy and to work out why and what others are thinking and feeling. For example, people can be unkind if they are tired or stressed, and it may have nothing to do with oneself. Some people really struggle to consider what might be going on in the minds of other people: see Allen, J.G. and Fonagy, P. (eds.) (2007). Handbook of Mentalization-Based Treatment. Chichester: Wiley. If you want to explore the neuroscience and some of the new work on mirror neurons try Decety, J. and Jackson, P.L. (2004). The functional architecture of human empathy. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews 3, 71–100. All these are really important to how we think about the minds of others and cannot be understood only in cognitive terms.
3 A key researcher in this area is John Gottman who studied various physiological responses when couples interact as ways of seeing which couples would stay together and which break up. See Gottman, J.M., Driver, J. and Tabares, A. (2002). Building the sound marital house: An empirically derived couple therapy. In Gurman A.S. and Jacobson, N.S. (eds). Clinical Handbook of Couple Therapy (3rd edition, pp.373–399). New York: Guilford.
4 There is increasing evidence that feeling trapped is a common experience in depression (including feeling trapped by the illness). Gilbert, P. and Gilbert, J. (2003). Entrapment and arrested fight and flight in depression: An exploration using focus groups. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory Research and Practice 76, 173–188. Feelings of entrapment are now strongly linked to depression as both cause and consequence. See Brown, G.W., Harris, T.O. and Hepworth, C. (1995). Loss, humiliation and entrapment among women developing depression: A patient and non-patient comparison. Psychological Medicine 25, 7–21. See also our own research: Gilbert, P., Gilbert, J. and Irons, C. (2004). Life events, entrapments and arrested anger in depression. Journal of Affective Disorders 79, 149–160.
5 Wearden, A.J., Tarrier, N., Barrowclough, C., Zastowny, T.R. and Rahil, A.A. (2000). A review of expressed emotion research in health care. Clinical Psychology Review 5, 633–666.
1 There has recently been a major research interest in shame. There is a very good overview in Tracy, Robins and Tangney (2007), mentioned earlier. You might also be interested in Gilbert, P. and Andrews, B. (eds) (1998). Shame: Interpersonal Behavior, Psycho -pathology and Culture. New York: Oxford University Press and Gilbert, P. and Miles, J. (2002). Body Shame. London: Routledge.
2 Gilbert, P. (2009). The Compassionate Mind: A New Approach to Life’s Challenges. London: Constable & Robinson.
3 Kaufman, G. (1989). The Psychology of Shame. New York: Springer.
4 Bernice Andrews has looked at the relationship between child sexual abuse and chronic depression. See for example Andrews, B. (1998). Shame and childhood abuse. In Gilbert, P. and Andrews, B. (eds) Shame: Interpersonal Behavior, Psychopathology and Culture (pp. 176– 190). New York: Oxford University Press.
5 There are now many reports and self-help books on the theme of childhood sexual abuse. One that gives a number of exercises to work through is Ainscough, C. and Toon, K. (2000). Breaking Free Workbook: Practical Help for Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse. London: Sheldon.
1 Tangney, J.P. and Dearing, R.L. (2002). Shame and Guilt. New York: Guilford Press. This is a very well written and accessible book that brings the reader up to date with a lot of research. See also Baumeister, R.F., Stillwell, A.M. and Heatherton, T.F. (1994). Guilt: an interpersonal approach. Psychological Bulletin 115, 243–267. A very interesting approach to guilt can be found in O’Connor, L.E. (2000). Pathogenic beliefs and guilt in human evolution: Implications for psychotherapy. In Gilbert, P. and Bailey, K.G. (eds.) Genes on the Couch: Explorations in Evolutionary Psychotherapy (pp. 276–303). Hove: Brunner-Routledge. You may also be interested in Gilbert, P. (1997). The evolution of social attractiveness and its role in shame, humiliation, guilt and therapy. British Journal of Medical Psychology 70, 113–147. A review can be found in Gilbert, P. (2003). Evolution, social roles, and differences in shame and guilt. Social Research, 70, 1205–1230.
2 Hoffman, M.L. (1991). Empathy, social cognition and moral action. In Kurtines, W.M. and Gewirtz, J.L. (eds.) Handbook of Moral Behavior and Development. Vol 1: Theory (pp. 275–301) Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
3 Gilbert, P. (2007). Psychotherapy and Counselling for Depression (3rd edition). London: Sage.
4 Gilbert, P. (2009). The Compassionate Mind: A New Approach to Facing the Challenges of Life. London: Constable & Robinson.
5 O’Connor, L.E. (2000). Pathogenic beliefs and guilt in human evolution: Implications for psychotherapy, In Gilbert, P. and Bailey, K.G. (eds.) Genes on the Couch: Explorations in Evolutionary Psychotherapy (pp. 276–303). Hove: Brunner-Routledge.
6 Yalom, I.D. (1980). Existential Psychotherapy. New York:Basic Books.
7 Baumeister, R.F., Stillwell, A.M. and Heatherton, T.F. (1994). Guilt: an interpersonal approach. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 243–267.
1 Gilbert, P., Irons, C., Olsen, K., Gilbert, J. and McEwan, K. (2006). Interpersonal sensitivities: Their link to mood, anger and gender. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory Research and Practice 79, 37–51. We have also found that if one broods on one’s resentment this is linked to depressed mood too: Gilbert, P., Cheung, M., Irons, C., and McEwan, K. (2005). An exploration into depression focused and anger focused rumination in relation to depression in a student population. Behavioral and Cognitive Psychotherapy 33, 273–283.
2 Some important work has looked at how we express anger to those above and those below us in the pecking order. Fournier, M.A., Moskowitz, D.S. and Zuroff, D.C. (2002). Social rank strategies in hierarchical relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83, 425–433.
3 Our own and other people’s research has also shown that depressed people can feel angry but can be frightened of it and try to suppress it. See Gilbert, P., Gilbert, J. and Irons, C. (2004). Life events, entrapments and arrested anger in depression. Journal of Affective Disorders 79, 149–160. Dana Jack has also outlined some fascinating and important issues about the fear of anger in her work on silencing the self. See for example Jack, D.C. (1992). Silencing The Self: Women and Depression. New York: HarperCollins (Paperback).
There are many books on learning to recognize and cope with anger.
1 You can read more on the work of Arrindell and his colleagues on assertiveness in a number of papers stretching back to the 1980s. Here are a couple to follow up: Arrindell, W.A., Bridges, K.R., van der Ende, J. et al. (2001).Normative studies with the Scale for Interpersonal Behavior (SIB): II. US students. A cross-cultural comparison with Dutch data. Behavior Research and Therapy 39, 1461–1479; Arrindell, W. A., van der Ende, J., Sanderman, R., Oosterhof, L., Stewart, R., and Lingsma, M.M. (1999). Normative studies with the Scale for Interpersonal Behavior (SIB): I. Nonpsychiatric social skills trainees. Personality and Individual Differences 27, 417–431. See also http://share.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/FILES/root2/2005/Normstwit/Arrindell_2005_Personal_Indiv_Differen.pdf.
2 Bono, G. and McCullough M.E. (2006). Positive responses to benefit and harm: Bringing forgiveness and gratitude into cognitive psychotherapy. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy: An International Quarterly. 20, 147–158. A helpful review chapter is Worthington, E.L., O’Connor, L.E., Berry, J.W., Sharp, C., Murray, R. and Yi, E. (2005). Compassion and forgiveness: Implications for psychotherapy. In Gilbert, P. (ed). Compassion: Conceptualisations, Research and Use in Psychotherapy (pp. 168–192). London: Routledge.
You will also find a lot on the Internet on forgiveness.
1 Many of the books by the Dalai Lama address these issues from a Buddhist point of view. Craib, I.(1994). Importance of Disappointment. London: Routledge is an interesting book outlining how and why disappointment and frustrations are actually key to our personal development; we should not see them as just bad things to be dealt with as they can give insight into our values and self. The late Dr Albert Ellis, a famous New York therapist, also wrote much on the issue of how we impose conditions on life with our insistence on ‘must’ and ‘have to’ and telling ourselves things are unbearable. He wrote many books. Dr Windy Dryden, a UK-based therapist, is also a prolific writer on this form of therapy and you will find many outlines of their work on the Internet.
1 Morgan, A.J. and Jorm, A. (2008). Self-help strategies that are helpful for the subthreshold depression: A Delphi consensus. Journal of Affective Disorders. doi 10.1016.
2 Begley, S. (2007). Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain. New York: Ballantine Books. I discussed some of this information in Chapter 8. Another book you may want to look at is Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain that Changes Itself; Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. New York: Penguin.