Depression and Bipolar Disorder

Your Guide to Recovery
by William R. Marchand, M.D.

Following No Love Allowed, I wanted to know more about bipolar and this was the only other book on the subject when I browsed the shelf, though I have since made a to-read list from the catalog. It's a very thorough guide (as far as I can tell) on mood disorders- mostly concerning depression and bipolar but also others such as anxiety. The book details what is known about mood disorders and brain chemistry, how a diagnosis is reached, what to expect when visiting doctors, how treatment choices are made, management of symptoms, prevention of relapse and more. It's all very methodical and straightforward. Not much about what it's like to live with the disorder, or to know someone who has it, but more about how to seek treatment and manage care. I appreciate that the author outlined his credentials, explained how trials are done on medications, what risk factors actually mean and how to find credible sources of information. It all appears to be very useful and factual. I feel it's a bit unfair for me to give this book a rating, because I didn't really read all of it- I skipped lots of pages that had charts on medications, forms to track symptoms and the like. Or parts that just weren't that interesting. But I did go through it entirely front-to-back and feel like I learned quite a lot from what I did read- the majority.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5                 360 pages, 2012