From Depression to Contentment: A Self-Therapy Guide is a book that provides help for readers who are experiencing depression and desire an alternative to outside therapy. It presents well-researched techniques and methods that are straightforward to implement. Why was this an important book for you to write?

Actually, the book title addresses depression because my publisher is very firm: each book should seem to limit itself to one problem. However, psychotherapy doesn’t actually work like that. With suitable modification, essentially the same tools will provide a path out of chronic anxiety, addictions, anger… basically, human suffering. This is because, as I say in the book, classifications like in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual are basically science fiction.

Second, the therapy bit is only halfway, from ongoing agony to “normal,” which is the walking wounded. Then the tools of positive psychology and Buddhist psychology allow you to rise WAY above that.

This book is the distillation of decades of my personal experience, study, and therapeutic practice. I wrote it to be of service to as many people as possible, then a few more.

How much research did you undertake for this book and how much time did it take to put it all together?

In a way, no research at all — specifically for this book. When I started university, I decided not to go into Medicine because it was a 6-year course, then at least 4 more years of training. Then, overall I spent 14-and-a-half years as a student. And in my profession, you don’t ever stop learning. A condition of being registered is continuous study. And even though I retired in 2013, I have kept up with new research, just from interest.

So, while this research and study were not for the book, all that information and knowledge is in there. Well, it is, up to the publication date. It’s annoying, but when I sent my time machine in for service, they returned it to an alternative universe. What’s happened since is only marginal, but it doesn’t matter all that much, because therapy, including self-therapy, will work if three conditions are present, as Carl Rogers has described. These are empathy, love of the kind Buddha, Jesus and many other sages have told us to give to everyone, and genuineness. That last one is that it has to be honest.

What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?

• Chronic emotional suffering beyond what the situation warrants is always due to the interaction of
several factors. One of them is childhood trauma, as seen through the child’s eyes.
• Depression, chronic anxiety and the like are not due to faulty brain chemistry.
• Using the tools I teach in the last part of the book, you can live a contented life in any situation.

What is one thing that you hope readers take away from From Depression to Contentment?

The more you give, the more you get, and also the more you grow.

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