[lusr]

And even if you move past the paralysis, trying to cure oneself of depression is like trying to debug the operating system of your mind using a debugger running the exact same flawed logic that you're trying to debug!

Worse, those bugs are live and their nature is to slowly but surely corrupt the rest of the system software pertaining to beliefs, memory, perception and thought processing. Eventually you reach a point where it's almost impossible to tell what's a lie and what's real, or how to non-dysfunctionally process what you do discover!

This is why therapy is so critical - you have an objective third party to help debug things, identify your blindspots and point out where the bugs in your beliefs and thought processes are. A reference manual for identifying and repairing dysfunctional thinking is also incredibly valuable and to that end I recommend David Burns' "Feeling Good" to anybody in this situation.

[pvnick]

I just wanted to reply to give another endorsement to David Burns' Feeling Good (http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/03808...) - I personally use the Feeling Good Handbook (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452281326) which is the exact same thing but a little condensed. It's a big book which can be hard to tackle with depression.

Guys, if you're suffering from depression or anxiety, this is the be all and end all of lasting treatments that works. I actually Ctrl-F'ed for it when I opened this thread.

[danso]

Wow, 700 pages for the 4 dollar Kindle edition. Hard to not give it a try http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-Mood-Therapy-ebook/dp/B00...

[jdp23]

Agreed, strongly recommended. My Mom's a librarian, and she's given it to dozens of people over the years; back in the 1990s she even bought a dozen paperbacks on sale and would mail them to friends who were having problems.