Product Description

Like the lucid madness chronicled in Girl, Interrupted, this riveting memoir traces the devastating path of clinical depression through the diaries of Martha Manning--a psychotherapist who became a patient and underwent electroshock therapy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #373024 in Books
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 201 pages

--USA Today
"An absolutely absorbing read."

--Los Angeles Times
"A brilliant combination of wit, irony, and despair....Undercurrents is absolutely as good as it gets."

--Dallas Morning News
"Full of unexpected delights...honest, hilarious, full of hope."

Customer Reviews

Putting Me at Ease
I have suffered from a mental disorder all my life. The severity has increased over the years. Although the doctors are having a hard time determining what I am suffering from (depression, bipolar, borderline personality) this book spoke to me. Reading through tears while nodding my head, this author experienced so much that I have, as well as many others. Knowing that she is a woman whose chosen career would send her patients like me was comforting. This book gives me hope that with a great support system happiness and achieving stability is obtainable. After a long time of feeling out of place or strange I am put as ease and feel human again after reading her story. Anyone who suffers from or has a loved one who is suffering from a mental disorder should read this book.

Inspirational
To say this book saved my life may sound melodramatic, but is true nonetheless.

I read this book soon after college, while in the throes of what was not my first episode of depression. Doctors had been recommending ECT for years, but I was scared to death of it, mostly because of the potential for memory loss. Since Manning is a therapist and obviously very educated, learning that she was able to resume her life without significant adverse effects was incredibly reassuring. Doctors always say "I'd recommend ECT to my mother if she were as depressed as you are." In Manning I found a mental health professional who not only would recommend it to her mother but would actually put herself through it, something I had previously been unable to believe about the doctors I had spoken with.

In 1999, several years after reading "Undercurrents" for the first time, I experienced my worst depression yet. Re-reading this book helped me find the courage to try ECT, and I have been depression-free ever since. After 20 years of fighting off the beast, I had finally won and I felt I owed a considerable amount of my success to Manning.

During one of my hospitalizations, I loaned this book to my mom. Manning describes what depression feels like in a way that I had previously been unable to and I felt her book would help my mom understand why I had attempted suicide so many times in the past. She did find it enlightening; although it made her sad to finally realize how I had been feeling, it did give her more clarity on the overwhelming helplessness associated with depression.

Unfortunately, Ms Manning has not had the luck with ECT that I have. I had the opportunity to meet her at a book signing for another book to which she had contributed. I was so excited I was going to be able to thank her in person!!! Many other people showed up at the reading to ask her about "Undercurrents" as well; it was clear this book had a great impact on the people in attendance. While answering their questions, Manning revealed that ECT was not a cure-all for her. She has had to undergo subsequent treatments which have been less successful than the initial treatment she wrote about. In fact, at the time she was in the midst of another depressive episode, albeit a relatively mild one. As a result, she was less than gracious when people asked her to sign copies of "Undercurrents" that night.

Downwards spiral into her personal hell.
Dr. Martha Manning was a university professor, psychologist, wife and mother. Depression transformed her from being happy and healthy to a sleepwalker haunted by thoughts of suicide. Undercurrents chronicles this transformation through Manning's journal entries. We understand her terror as she evaluates a new patient only to realize that she herself meets all of the textbook criteria of depression and feel her nowhere-to-turn despair as she is forced to acknowledge that the love of her family, the support of her therapist, and the exhaustive drug treatments administered by her psychiatrist are not succeeding. Finally, Manning agrees to electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT. Notorious for its brain damage and confusion, this controversial treatment becomes her last resort and only hope.
While I don't think I'm at the point of considering ECT, this is definately a book I'd recommend to anyone with depression. Not everyone has the same experiences, but if you want to explain depression to your loved ones, give them this book.