Depression: Symptoms and Treatment In western Nigeria, an energetic Yoruba woman gradually withdraws from village life, ceases tending her garden, and – to the dismay of her family and neighbors – spends her days staring at the wall of her hut. In Osaka Japan, a conscientious college student suffers weeks of anxiety and shame, convinced he will fail an upcoming examination, and prepares to disembowel himself. In Southern California, a hard-driving sales manager repeatedly cancels important appointments, …showed first 75 words of 2752 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2752 total…book entitled The Secret Strength of Depression, noted that many people rebound from depression better able to cope, often reaching new levels of creativity. The illness, he wrote, enables a person to examine, the relinquish, old assumptions that block a fresh appraisal of the possibilities in life. "to experience acute depression," Flach concluded, "is an opportunity for a person not just to learn more about himself, but to become more whole than he was" (Campbell 87).