Creating Optimism

• Publisher:   McGraw-Hill
• Number Of Pages:   272
• Publication Date:   2005-01-19
• ISBN-10 / ASIN:   0071446834
• ISBN-13 / EAN:   9780071446839

Based on the authors' more than 20 years of research and practice, this unique, seven-step program challenges the conventional wisdom that healing occurs from the inside out. It shows that real change comes from building healthier relationships with other people, our own bodies, nature, and spirituality. The program can be used either without medications or in conjunction with them.

This is not just a good read, but very clearly falls into helping you to self analysis yourself. Helpful and insightful.

This book is absolutely laughable in how it tries to deal with clinical depression. The author's suggestions are akin to the idea that wearing a smiley face on your lapel will make you a happier person. His insistence that humans are somehow "wired for happiness" is rather hard to reconcile with the Buddhist principle that "Life is suffering", yet that doesn't stop him from shamelessly pushing religion on his readers. If you're an atheist, you apparently don't even count as a person. The positive reviews of this book seem to come from the author himself and his multiple fake accounts, which only furthers undermines his integrity as a serious writer.

The book had good tips, but I found it lacking in some areas. The gist of the book is that depression is perpetuated and enabled by our highly individualistic society. In a hunter-gatherer society, no one is allowed to get depressed; in our Western society it happens all the time. The premise of the book is fine and I applaud the authors for their innovative approach. Sadly we've become a therapy/medicine obsessed culture whereas we feel that all of our problems can be solved by going to a doctor or professional. As such, the authors rightly tap into the fact that humans have been healing themselves from depression - long before psychology and psychiatry - mainly through the power of spirituality and the power of healing relationships. With that said, I have two problems with the book. One, while there were a lot of gold nuggets here and there, the Uplift program is a little hard to follow without a trained professional to help. I think the authors know that, which leads me to believe that they are using this book primarily to advertize their innovative treatment as opposed to using this book to help individuals like me who suffer from depression. My second beef is that not all the time are great fulfilling networks and relationships possible. Their prescriptions for creating satisfying relationships seemed a little cursory and superficial and not very realistic in all situations. Near the end of the book, I started to think the book shouldn't be called "Creating Optimism," but rather, "Creating Fulfilling Relationships with Yourself and Others," or maybe "The Joys of Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Communication." Other than that, I think "Creating Optimism" is a great companion book for many other self-help books out there.

I read this book when I was recovering both from heart surgery and major depression. I had been told by my doctors that the two were linked-that depression was one of the contributory factors in heart disease-but I never really realized the force of the link until I read "Creating Optimism."
Since my surgery I have been doing the easy-to-follow exercises in the book and have been looking at my life through a whole new prism. I have new and more positive ways of looking at my past, at my relationships, at my work, at my family. The book presents a veritable lifestyle change.
It is six months since I bought the original hardback edition and I have changed. I am a different person. I am actually beginning to like myself. Occasionally the depressive thoughts come back, but the book has given me the tools to prevent these becoming a full-blown depressive incident.
I have been buying copies of the new edition (the paperback) to give to my friends. I hope they read it. If they do they, too, will change.
I would thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who suffers from depression or anxiety, who has trouble-as I did-with forming truly supportive relationships or is faced with a serious health challenge.

This is a great book , it gives excellent insight into the base causes of depression and practical and easy to follow steps on how to go about overcoming depression . I can't recommend it highly enough for those who have found depression a reoccuring pattern in there lives. You can work through this with the help of this seven step program and you'll never look back. And it's on going with a website that you can visit to keep up with any new information , fantastic effort to Bob and Alicia you have given the world a great gift,

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