Dorothy Rowe

In my post entitled The Death of a Great Little Magazine I said that Stephen Fry, 'became notorious for abandoning his role in a West End play and running away to France. However, he returned, confronted his demons, and since then he not only produced such magnificent work but he has become a National Treasure.' I was basing what I said on what the media had said about what Stephen was doing. Also, I had been watching his television programmes, and heard him speak at the Mind Award lunch where he had been given the Champion title. In my clinical work I have know a large number of people who had been plunged into the hideous whirlpool of anxiety, mania and depression but had managed to find something that had enabled them, not only to emerge from this experience, but to learn from it and become a much wiser person. It seemed to me that this is what Stephen had done.

We're used to science fiction telling us stories about people travelling in space in a space ship, just as we're used to walking into a silver cylinder where we're fed, supplied with drinks, and where we watch television and go to sleep. Time passes, and then we're told to leave the cylinder whereupon, lo and behold, we find they've shifted the scenery and we're in another country. Why not do something similar when with climate change Earth becomes too uncomfortable a place to live? Instead of arriving at another country we could arrive at another planet or a whole series of planets until we find one as nice as the planet whose climate we have ruined?

For the last forty-odd years Barbara Ehrenreich has been inspecting aspects of American life with a mercilessly critical eye. Her latest book is published under different titles in different countries, but my copy, published in New York by Henry Holt and Company in 2009 is called Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. Positive thinking and Positive Psychology are big business in the USA, and like all big businesses in America, Positive Psychology seeks to conquer the world.

Lawrence Summers, 'Larry' to his friends, is currently the Director of the National Economic Council for President Obama and thus playing a significant part in the development of American economic policy. He had also been Chief Economist for the World Bank, Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton Administration and President of Harvard University.

Each year I avoid the worst of the English winter by spending those three months in Australia. The place has changed enormously since I lived there, but some things go on forever. When I arrive I am sure to find that the newspapers are covering a story or two about the goings-on of a dishonest business man or politician, and there is an account of someone being beaten up for reasons that might be linked to racism. Sometimes these attacks become major news stories. In 2005 there were the Cronulla riots, and in 2010 the attacks on Indian students in Melbourne.

The Irish currency used to be called the punt. Whenever Michael O'Leary, the CEO of Ryan Air, was asked why, he would explain, 'Because it rhymes with banker.

On January 13, 2010 Lloyd C. Blankfein, Chairman and CEO of the Goldman Sachs Group, Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase and Co, John J. Mack, Chairman of Morgan Stanley, and Brian T. Moynihan, CEO and President of the Bank of America, testified before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC). As I read their testimonies I was reminded of one of the ploys that school children use to get out of trouble. Indeed, I remember using it myself when at school. When the teacher is taking the class to task for some misdemeanour, several of the children adopt the pose of 'not me, miss' by agreeing with the teacher that what the miscreants have done is most reprehensible and that the teacher is right to take measures against them. These four bankers, so they would have the inquiry believe, have done nothing wrong, but the inquiry was correct to look into the activities of the other bankers and in ordering them to desist.

Tanya Gold is a Guardian columnist whose style is trenchant criticism of the stupid, the self-deluded, and those who manipulate the truth for their own benefit. She also makes her readers laugh - well, most of them. Last September she turned her attention to the Pope's forthcoming visit to Britain in 2010.

No doubt Gold has views about the Catholic Church and what elevates one man to a position of great power, including the power of infallibility, but here she kept her views to herself. What interested her was one particular Pope, Pope Benedict XVI, formerly known as Joseph Ratzinger. When he arrives in Britain he will be afforded the greatest respect by all our leaders, none of whom will reprimand him or his church for acts that many people would regard as most reprehensible.

The English watch the weather all the time. It's a popular topic of conversation, something to say when you can't think of anything to say. English weather has always been changeable. Unless you're a gardener, you mightn't have noticed any change in the climate. If you live in Bangladesh, you couldn't help but notice the rise in sea levels that has already inundated large areas of inhabited land, or, if you lived in Kenya where the Korondille reservoir is empty and people and cattle are dying of thirst, you would know that something had changed.

Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans on August 23, 2005. Three weeks later Naomi Klein, her husband Avi and her colleague Andrew drove around New Orleans to photograph the partially flooded city. As night fell they could not find their way out because none of the traffic lights worked, road signs were destroyed, and debris blocked the streets. They were involved in an accident, and Naomi found herself in an ambulance on her way to hospital. She hoped they were not heading to the partially flooded Charity Hospital where the staff struggled to look after their many patients without electricity or drugs.

The Talking Book version, read by Dorothy Rowe

NEW VERSION now available as digital recording.  Cassette version may also be available in 'New' or 'Used' condition via Amazon.

Dorothy Rowe, the internationally renowned psychologist and expert on depression, brings together on this tape what her thirty years of research have shown her about depression, and shows us how every one of us can take charge of our life and find the way to happiness, hope and freedom.

Depression: the imprisoning experience of isolation and fear which comes when we discover that there is a serious discrepancy between what we thought our life was and what it actually is.

From birth onwards we create our own secure worlds of meaning. Challenged seriously enough, these worlds can crumble, leaving us despairing, frightened, isolated, helpless. But we are not helpless. We can resolve to save ourselves by embarking on a journey of understanding and self-acceptance, and finally and forever break free of the bonds of depression.

(2 tapes : 3 hours of listening)