The Blurb:

Use your writing talent and your skill with words heal yourself. Author Rayne Hall and psychologist Alexander Draghici show fourteen practical strategies for self-therapy.

Do you feel like you’re trapped in a dark hole of morass, sinking deeper and deeper, the mud rising to your hips, your chest, your throat? Is despair smothering you like a heavy blanket? Is your own life moving past you like a train, and you are forced to watch and cannot board? Has crippling lethargy wrapped its tentacles around you so tightly that you cannot move, sucking from you all energy and the will to live?

If you want to get better, to feel alive again, if you want to step out of this darkness and take control of your recovery, this book can help.

 My Review:

This has been a difficult year for both me and my family and, as someone who sometimes sufferes from ‘crippling lethargy’ because of depression, I was hopeful when I was approached to read and write an honest review of Write Your Way Out Of Depression….

This is an interesting and helpful book. I wouldn’t have expected anything else from Rayne Hall; as an author and a creative writing tutor I have bought quite a few of her very helpful ‘How To’ writing books.

In Write Your Way Out Of Depression Rayne’s methods are backed by psychologist Alexander Draghici whose input is to support  her theory of dealing and coping with depression through various writing strategies, and to let the reader know how these may help. The techniquues are simply described, easy to understand, approaches to taking control of those dark thoughts and moods.

 The co-authors also highlight the risks of excessive brooding and self-analysis. The emphasis is on practical ways to write our way through depression…and hopefully out the other side. No guarantees, unlike so many ‘cure-all’ approaches; just down-to-earth techniques that I could follow, with the added bonus that it could also help my own writing.

The layout of the book is simple to follow; there is a chapter for each technique, which is divided into three; the what I call the exercise (rather than the technique), Rayne’s understanding and knowledge of each (as a sufferer herself of depression, they have, at various times, helped her) and, finally, Alexander’s expert opinion and advice.  I found both of these last sections as interesting and perceptive as the techniques themselves.  Each co-author has had their own mental issues to deal with in one way or another;  as I’ve mentioned Rayne’s experiences and Alexander’s battle with anxiety attacks in his youth.

I cannot give this book higher praise than to urge anyone who is suffering from depression and feels they would like to try writing as a way to ‘step out of this darkness and take control of your recovery…’  to buy  Write Your Way Out Of Depression: Practical Self-Therapy For Creative Writers  I did. It worked for me. It could work for you.

 Buying Links:

Amazon.co.uk:  http://amzn.to/2fEuEj5

Amazon.com: http://amzn.to/2glvCQH