Consider these statistics: Nearly 50 percent of asthma patients suffer from symptoms of depression. At least 40 percent of persons with Parkinson’s disease experience depression, and anxiety is often reported. Forty to 65 percent of patients who have had a heart attack suffer from depression. The lifetime risk for depression in patients with multiple sclerosis...

Robert J. Wicks, psychologist and bestselling author of Riding the Dragon, recently told me a story about impermanence: A psychiatrist (Epstein) went to Thailand with some colleagues to meet a well-known Buddhist sage.  As they were about to leave they asked if he had a final message for them. He was drinking a glass of...

Do you remember the old Zoloft (Sertraline) ad where the sad egg no longer chases the birdy, and whenever he moves, the thick cloud above follows him? Pfizer did a masterful job of taking a very complex phenomenon and simplifying it down to a concept that two-year-olds can understand. In fact, the visual props made such...

“Were you frightened to have children with your history of suicidal depression?” a young woman asked me the other day. “Did you have to stop medication while you were pregnant?” In the last ten years writing about mental health issues, these two questions keep surfacing, especially among young women who dream of pushing a baby...

Most people are still locked into the theory that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain – a shortage of feel-good neurotransmitters like serotonin that deliver messages from one neuron to another. That explanation works well for public consumption because it’s simple and it makes for great pharmaceutical commercials. But depression is...