Talk:Demystifying Depression

Review Notes

 * Just because wikibooks can be edited by anybody, doesn't mean they are. (The graphs are totally bogus.) by 128.119.165.135
 * That disclaimer was definitely a good one. Although the author warns the reader at some points about following conjecture, it feels like most of this book is conjecture, fuzzy logic, and the result of a nonprofessional. The author scolds professionals, as if those who have made a career out of psychology don't know their subject; yet the author himself seems to have little experience. If he could back up his statements by citing his sources, I would be more impressed. -Monk 05:55, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

This book is not a good source of information
Let me make this clear right now: The majority of this book was written by one person (Name of Feather), a person who is not a professional, has not cited any articles from scientific journals. In fact, his sources are all secondary, and they all suck (Really, they do). There is no indication that this guy has any idea what he's talking about. He talks big, as if he knows the subject. But where's the proof? This entire book is just one rambling speech after another about what he thinks depression is. Where is the proof that any of this bull is true? He speaks about all this brain chemistry mumbo-jumbo, and acts as if it instantly means that all his conclusions are accurate. But he backs up almost NONE of his claims with evidence.

Do not listen to this guy. Listening to this guy would be equivalent to taking medical advice about your broken leg from a Janitor who says he took a biology course in high school. Although Name of Feather may act like he knows the subject, it sure as hell seems he doesn't. If he had any actual professional experience, instead of just deciding that he'd go on the internet and spew whatever he decides is right, he'd have evidence and actual statistics, he'd have objective evidence and not just anecdotes about his own personal version of "the truth" about depression.

If you are depressed, do not make decisions about what to do off of this book. There's no evidence that the author understands the subject any more than you do. The author just *thinks* they understand the subject, but that doesn't mean anything. Go to an actual doctor, an actual professional; or if you're not into quacks, who have spent years studying this stuff, at least don't listen to this nut who thinks he has "all the answers" because he uses fancy words like "serotonin" and "neurogenesis." I don't care if he read a news article or two about it. I don't care if he took some course in psychology ten or twenty years ago. You should listen to actual professionals, or to many different people who have had depression. But don't let some stranger from the internet, who has not shown that his ideas are valid in any way, tell you what to do with your life.--Monk 06:21, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I am wondering if large portions of this book need removed until they can be written properly. Lonjers 08:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and would have said it if nobody else had. But in defence of the author, depression is a very individual thing. I was diagnosed with depression as a child and I am now over 60. It didn't stop me working. My story would be very different. The other day I looked at a book by an English sufferer. His story was very different again, and just as irrelevant to mine. Depression is not capable of precise description like a broken leg or an infection. I have yet to come up with a formal definition of it.

On the subject of rants
Hey Monk, before you "contribute" any further, would you mind counting the number of times that readers are advised to seek professional help if they think they have a depression? I go as far as advising them to seek a competent professional (i.e. a psychiatrist) instead of being treated only by their (cheaper) GPs.

That being said, show the advice herein contained to a modern psychiatrist. They will not disagree with it. --Name of Feather 21:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)


 * On the subject of proof, by Monk


 * You seem to be very confused as to where the burden of proof lies here. It's not my job to disprove the contents of your book to show that the contents are untrustworthy. It's your job to prove the contents of your book to show that they're trustworthy in the first place. You can't just put any content up here and expect everyone to treat it as authoritative and the truth until they can get an expert to vouch against it. You need to back up your statements with proof. Doing that is your job, not mine. If you cannot provide good proof for your scientific statements, you can not expect others to treat anything you say as scientifically reputable.


 * Secondly, I don't give a damn if you advise readers to see a professional a hundred times, that doesn't make your knowledge any more professional. You are not qualified to "inform" people about the subject to any degree, because as far as I'm concerned, you may know nothing about it. You may just be making this up. You may just be "remembering it" from some casual chat you had with a few psych doctors months ago, but that means essentially nothing as to qualifications. You have shown NO qualifications to educate others on the subject. Normally, qualifications are irrelevant as long as you can back up your claims with objective evidence, but so far you have not actually backed up your claims with anything but a vague hand-motion to a few mainstream-level science magazines, and some other worthless sources.


 * Depression is a sensitive subject. I think I'm justified in warning other people when you go around telling them what to do with their lives without providing any evidence that you know what you're talking about. I don't care if you throw in "Oh, but you should really see a doctor" at the beginning, you're still instructing them on something that you may know nothing about. If you have enough evidence to support the claims you make in this book, that's great, but you have to show that evidence, and it has to be valid evidence. Every claim has to be supported by previously collected data, proof, and scientific papers, rather than be anecdotal.


 * Irrelevant of whether the book is designed to appeal to the masses, the information within is of a sensitive scientific subject, and should be scientifically accurate. Like any scientific piece, although it may be up to others to investigate whether your evidence and data is valid and whether it supports or does not support your conclusion (something I have done, and in this case I have found that it's mostly invalid evidence), it's up to you to prove your arguments in the first place. You have failed to do that. If you can not support your claims about depression, you are not qualified to speak on the subject, and you are not qualified to tell people how to live their lives when under such a mentally precarious condition.


 * I don't need to prove you wrong for your claims to be dubious. If you can not prove that you are correct in the first place, your claims are automatically put into doubt. Until you can back your claims up, and back them up well, this book is an unreliable source of information. - Monk talk 20:15, 17 December 2006 (UTC)



I am male, and in Australia. I have had depression for 45 years, but I still don't take an hour and a half to get up in the morning. I am sure that what Name of Feather has written agrees with his experience, and no doubt, what he has written is what a psychiatrist would say to him. It is good if it gets men to acknowledge that they can be depressed, too. But it is not of general application. On the ordinary Wikipedia, it would be labelled "weasel words" - putting the author's views forward as general knowledge (although I hate the expression itself.) How does he know that a modern psychiatrist would not disagree with his advice? Is he a psychiatrist, or so familiar with psychiatric thought generally? He hasn't quoted the basis of this statement, just as with any of his others. I have already mentioned one area where I would receive different advice.

What worries me is that advice to wrap oneself in cotton wool, as he recommends, is exactly the wrong treatment for depression. It depends on the depth of depression involved, and I was lucky enough to keep working. But so many depressed people are sitting patiently waiting for a cure, and doing nothing with their lives in the meantime. Depression is an interaction of brain chemistry, circumstances and attitude. Change any one, and you change the other two. Although "positive thinking" or "counting our blessings" often achieves nothing against depression, nevertheless attitude is still within our control. Depression practically wipes me out for about 3 days every month, but like a woman with periods that are just as disabling, I don't let it stop me the rest of the time. I try to look on it as a disability, rather than an illness.

I find the term "a depression" strange. I suppose that it is legitimate like "a cancer" or "an AIDS". It must be a local thing. We don't use it here. - Douglaid

Sources suck because....
His sources suck, and here's why -- The author has only supported his statements with the following references: This guy only cites one good source, but his book doesn't even reflect the contents of that source. All the other sources are either secondary or meaningless. Looks like he has no idea what he's talking about.
 * created a few haphazard links to a "science news" website, and a page which reprints a "science news" magazine. Where "science news" refers to a magazine that reformats, rewrites, and rewords science knowledge as to make consumable for easy reading by the public.
 * created a few links to wikipedia articles
 * created a link to a student's assignment at a college (Not an authoritative source in any way!).
 * The only possibly valid reference he uses is This NIMH site, and you would be better off reading that page than this "book".

--Monk 06:36, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Exercise only for 'mild' depression?
My psychiatrist told me that regular aerobic exercise is as good for moderate depression as an SSRI, according to studies. This book states the proper role of exercise is much more limited, without seeming to back that up with proper research.

207.34.148.245 19:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Todo

 * Change the tone of the book, especially the first person perspective.
 * Agreed.

Retitle?
I think that a title like Introduction to Depression would serve this book better and bring it more inline with the textbook nature of wikibooks. What does everyone else think? Triddle 07:17, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Change Title The title Introduction to Depression is less marketing-pitch and honest. One more vote for this, and I'll move the title if nobody else does. -Monk 05:41, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Retitle plus other suggestions
Concerning the retitle, that is fine by me!

Some other suggestions (for now):


 * I will make proper figures out of the ASCII art. I know how they should look like, so I should do it.
 * Merge parts 1 and 2.

Later on there are other things that could be done:


 * Create a section for each of the available treatments (meds, etc)
 * Add information on the existing antidepressants (though Wikipedia already has quite a lot)

New navigation template
I created a prototype navigation template and put it on the first two pages of this book. Here it is as an example:

What does everyone else think? Triddle 20:22, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Template
Using a template is a good idea, of course.

About the particular format of the template, I would suggest that all links use the same font size. Also, "First Page" should be renamed "Top", as that is the standard nomenclature used by most tools (eg. tex2html).

Name of Feather 10:21, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Communication between editors
I personally find the use of the talk page a very limited form of communication. What about creating a mailing list (a yahoo group or something) for the purpose of synchronising the editing process?

Name of Feather 10:23, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Concerning the title
Well, I am not adamant about it, but perhaps we should leave the title as it is. It has already picked up some "brand recognition"... :-)

Name of Feather 10:44, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Namespace
Looking at the Naming conventions page, we should move all pages back to the original "Demystifying Depression/Section Name". That is the preferred format for new books.

Name of Feather 10:54, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * After reading the Naming Conventions page and Hierachy_naming_scheme it seems that using : is going to be easier for this project than using /. Why? The | trick will be of great use when creating links to pages inside the book. Quick overview of how links work:


 * Foo - links to Foo
 * Bar links to Foo but displays Bar
 * Foo:Bar links to Foo:Bar
 * Bar links to Foo:Bar but only displays Bar (note trailing |)
 * Foo/Bar links to Foo/Bar
 * Foo/Bar links to Foo/Bar but displays Foo/Bar, can't use trailing /
 * Bar links to Foo/Bar but displays Bar

Now think of the difference between

and

As well as the other benefits listed by Hierachy_naming_scheme. It really seems to me that setting this up in its own namespace is the way to go. Triddle 16:32, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I didn't know it was possible to create custom namespaces. In that case, it is definately the way to go!

Name of Feather 08:53, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Announce book
I think it is time to announce the book and add it to the bookshelves, don't you agree?

Name of Feather 11:03, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I do not agree due to the huge amount of unsupported and perhaps false information.Lonjers 09:10, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Notation fixer
I ran this program on all the articles to update the old style reference notation. I hope someone else can find it useful in the future. Triddle 06:56, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * 1) !/usr/bin/perl -w


 * 1) This source code is copyright Tyler Riddle ,
 * 2) caries no license requirements, and is made available for any purpose.
 * 3) You may incorporate this into any other project with out regard
 * 4) for licensing issues.

use strict;

my $data = <<EOF; EOF
 * 1) Wikipedia: Dualism (philosophy of mind)
 * 2) Wikipedia: Cirrhosis
 * 3) Taming Stress
 * 4) Wikipedia: Stress (medicine)
 * 5) Wikipedia: Fight-or-flight response
 * 6) Neurogenesis in the Human Brain: Fact or fiction?
 * 7) Stress and the Immune System
 * 8) Sleep Paralysis Page
 * 9) NIMH: Depression
 * 10) Wikipedia: Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor
 * 11) NIMH: Bipolar Disorder
 * 12) Why? The Neuroscience of Suicide
 * 13) Nietzsche's Toxicology
 * 14) Wikipedia: Clinical depression
 * 15) Wikipedia: Concentration (game)
 * 16) Wikipedia: Functional magnetic resonance imaging
 * 17) Depression and the Birth and Death of Brain Cells
 * 18) Overtraining

my @links = &build_array;

while(<>) { s/(\[(\d+)\])/&handler($1, $2)/ge; print; }

sub handler { my $orig = shift; my $refnum = shift; die "Invalid reference number: $refnum" unless defined $links[$refnum];

my $newlink = '['. $links[$refnum]. ']';

print STDERR "$orig => $newlink\n";

return $newlink; }

sub build_array { my @array;

$array[0] = 'garbage'; #numbering for the articles starts at 1

while($data =~ m/^#\[([^ \]]+)/gm) { my $link = $1;

push(@array, $link); }

return @array; }

Reference Descriptions
This is about the reference links throughout the book. What about adding article/page titles to the tooltips?

I am very impressed with the book. Thanks for a useful and real discussion.

Calvinism
The references to Calvinism probably need better explanation. 220.253.24.254 01:54, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Before you make changes...
Being a wikibook and all that means that one expects people to make changes/corrections as they see fit. However, if not for anything else at least for the sake of politeness, it would be very much appreciated if radical changes were first proposed in this talk page. (See the history for an example of what I'm referring to).

Thank you,

Name of Feather 18:46, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Radical changes are however needed to this book please make them.Lonjers 08:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I think some doctor should put some specific counter arguments against some of the specific the book is claiming. I sense that the author of this book deeply believes what he or she wrote, so he or she deserves some scientific arguments. May be those sections that can not be proved or were just made up should be marked as that are controversial. Ervinn 15:24, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

What should be done with this book?
I think that this book needs almost completely rewritten and reorganized as an introduction to depression. Or it needs to be removed from wikibooks. My reason for this is it contains large amounts of unsighted or original research and information based on individual experience. According to the "What Wikibooks is not" section of What is Wikibooks large parts of this book do not qualify for being part of a Wikibook. At the vary least it needs removed from the completed books book shelf. What are other peoples opinions Lonjers 09:15, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I would not remove this book. The claims it is making could be true, based on 'individual experience'. If scientifically proven that the book claims are incorrect then I would remove it. In the meantime it could be moved to a controversial state. There are some precedence, where 'individual experiences' were strongly rejected and eventually turned out to be true. Ervinn 15:40, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd move to remove...
I read this book with some care. I see very little merit in it and much potential for disseminating misconceptions and unfounded speculation about a very important subject. Does the nature of wiki mean that we have no reponsibility to try to ensure good quality information? Despite the caveats, this book is seriously likely to misinform people including sufferers about a potentially very dangerous illness.

Unfortunately not a 'wikibook'
I personally think that this work has its merits in giving a new public perspective (as far as I am aware) on depression. Upon reading the What is Wikibooks, however, I do not think that it qualifies unless properly cited or founded, as it is certainly not a textbook, rather an interesting essay. Simply put, I do not think that this is the place for the book; but I do think that it should be part of a public reading list somewhere on depression (I assume somewhere on Wiki), if not simply for the debate it causes.

My editing spree
In case any one noticed I went through and just destroyed everything I though was obviously wrong or does not fit the guidelines for what should be on wiki books. I realize this was not the most democratic method but it needed done and I was in the mood. The whole book still need restructured perhaps in the form of three major sections What is Depression, Treatments, Other Issues. It also all needs cited. If disagree with any of my changes feel free to revert. The book is currently a mess with many pages now blank in need of deletion but I could not figure out how to do that so perhaps some one more knowledgeable can help with that. Lonjers 11:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I do not agree all the deletions. Deleting something because being in the mood is the definitation of vandalism. I think a warning on the discussion page before deletion is the wiki policy we should follow. Ervinn 16:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I understand revert anything you feel is actually within the guide lines of things that should be on wiki books. Relize however the most of the information I deleted was in direct confrontation with much higher quality article on wikipedia. It just seemed to me that there had been a consensus for a while for deletion but no one had done anything. Lonjers 17:42, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

If this stays it is certainly inappropriately indexed
As a psychiatrist, and a wikipedia member I must say that the inclusion of this book under Health is completely unfair to to people seeking high quality information. It does provide one person's perspective without scientific data or sources, and it may have some value in shedding light on the publics viewpoint. However, this is not a book about Health. At best this should fall under Self-Help or perhaps Editorial. I refrain to get into the argument about whether this should be completely removed or not, but it certainly has no place whatsoever within the category of health. Slippy007 March 30, 2007

VfD
I personally feel that this book had some good information before it was mostly all deleted by Lonjers. However, if the requirements for inclusion here are the same as Wikipedia, than original research is not welcome and thus this book should be outright deleted. I don't know why it hasn't been put up for deletion given the general consensus. However, there is a deletion policy in effect here. As I do not believe it should be deleted I'm not going to put it up myself, but there you have it. Spoom (talk) 18:17, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I am depressed and THIS IS THE BEST PIECE OF INFORMATION I FOUND
I am depressed for years. Due to traumas and ongoing personal issues... I am educated person and read everything I could find about depresion ... I am went to therapy - 8 different highly qualified medical professionals and 2 MD who gave me meds. Results? -traditional medical community has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING USEFULL for me. I just learn to copy not to recover. So I think they should even post here.

Kim545 (discuss • contribs) 06:20, 17 November 2011 (UTC)