Drew Pinsky

A quick read, but the title of this book is very misleading. The title lead me to believe that it would have functional advice, and actionable tools or exercises for people with depression who want to restore/maintain intimacy in their relationships. It did not.

The book is set in a Q & A format with each question having multiple answers being given by various professionals in the mental health field. The first half of this 100 page book was all about defining depression. The second half was not so much about restoring intimacy as it was about waiting until it comes back on its own. It was a frustrating practice in redundancy. Every question was basically a variation of "I (or my partner with depression) are having trouble with intimacy because of my depression (or as a side effect of my medication). Every answer was a variation on the same three pieces of advice: 1) Take/change your meds, 2) Go to psychotherapy/couple's therapy 3) Wait until things get better.

Literally no better advice than to just wait it out. I find that to be pretty useless and extremely offensive. Just because a person has depression doesn't mean they're completely incapable of doing anything, and can't take actionable steps to make themselves feel more proactive/better about preserving the intimacy in their relationship. Even if it's not something that can be done in the deepest darkest depths of depression, there are things that can be done when you feel yourself falling into and coming out of depression that can help, and this book offered NONE of that.

I was also pretty offended at how even though most of the questions were given in a very open and non-gender specific format, then answers would assume/attribute issues to a specific gender.

Don't waste your time on this one. There are many other resources out there that provide better information and offer actionable tools/exercises/steps on the topic of intimacy and depression.

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An insightful book on the influence of celebrity narcissism on the attitude and behavior of the broader culture. Dr. Drew clinically analyzes the professional Hollywood culture and the reality TV celebrities who exhibit behaviors that are praised by the media but indicative of psychological problems that need treatment. The outrageous acting-out that indicates a need for treatment is praised by the celebrity and mainstream media then emulated by those in society who are vulnerable to such behavior by a desire to mirror the actions of the stars they admire or their own psychological fragility.

Drs. Pinsky and Young spend a great part of the book explaining narcissistic behaviors that are healthy and detrimental, personality disorders, factors that might be involved in the development of narcissistic personality disorders, and treatment suggestions. They also highlight the dangers of narcissistic culture on teens and adolescents and advise parents on how to prevent narcissism in their children.

Written in 2009, before the Miley Cyrus meltdown, Dr. Drew was very prophetic about how her life might develop if she did not receive treatment for this condition. He also discusses his objective in creating his own show, Celebrity Rehab to show the human side of the celebrities being treated for addiction and the trauma that often started them down their chaotic and disastrous path. He wanted to provide the knowledge and need for treatment associated with these behaviors that was missing in shows that glorified dysfunctions such as Real World and The Anna Nicole Show. I watched Celebrity Rehab because such treatment interests me and was moved by the story of Dennis Rodman, whom I disliked for his behavior, and in the end was hoping for his recovery and appreciating his humanity. I realized I had been caught up in his persona and forgot the humanity of a person, struggling and hurting on the inside, who was the victim of his own creation.

Until reality TV passes from the landscape, Dr. Drew's book serves as a reminder that there is little real about this edited, produced, and scripted fantasy world and much that is unhealthy in the lives of those who parade across our screens. Until society quits praising and mirroring such dysfunction and seeks a healthy life that brings positive value to others we must try to help those we can escape its downward spiral to self-destruction and prevent others from being seduced by the siren song of uninhibited passion, alcohol and drug abuse, and destructive behaviors into a trap that feeds self-loathing and emptiness.… (más)

I'd never heard of Dr. Drew Pinsky before I bought this book. Now I know a lot about him - the book is a paean to his thoughts on his own brilliance as a doctor, broadcaster, father, athlete, inspirational speaker, resister-of-sexy-patients and everything else that illustrates he has ascended to the absolute pinnacle of achievement in 21st century America.

Its seems these days that every celebrity has to have a stint or three in rehab for street cred (its so stressful being a multi-millionaire star with a huge entourage to look after one's every need including scoring drugs) and I was interested to see exactly what rehab involved. This was not the book that was going to enlighten me. Dr. Pinsky was involved only on the medical rather than psychological or behavioural side. That is, he prescribed medicines to ease his patients' physical progress through the rigours of going cold turkey. This is less than fascinating and his patients aren't celebs to provoke a satisfying smirk of schadenfreude, just boring, strung-out, generally self-absorbed individuals. Dr. Pinsky says that all these individuals suffered childhood abuse which led directly, in those physically susceptible to it, to almost-unavoidable drug or alcohol addiction. Oh, childhood abuse again. Right.

The rest of the book is taken up with relating stories from his other medical practice, his five-nights-a-week radio show, public speaking, and strange almost non-relationship with his wife, mother of his triplet children (Little League and ballet recitals duly attended) who leads an almost totally-separate life from her husband. Still, perhaps not strange, what with all those money- and fame-making activities and writing the book there probably wasn't much time left over and anyway, who'd want a close relationship with such an excessively self-involved person?

I don't very often give a book just one star, and if I hadn't disliked the author quite so much, I might have given it two. But to be fair, there is a culture clash here. Bragging of one's own achievements is a perfectly valid and even praiseworthy activity in the US but considered absolutely contemptible in the UK and I was raised in Britain. So read the book, listen to the radio show, catch him on his reality tv show and judge for yourselves.

This isn't an edit, just a few extra sentences that I wanted to add in the light of having seen both his tv show Celebrity Rehab and some gossip thing he does after the Nancy Grace rants. The Celeb Rehab has confirmed my belief that the z-lister celebs can't stand being the same nobodies that we all are and will do anything to get back in the public eye. Including showing themselves off at their very worst. Especially if they are being paid large sums for it. But it also showed Dr. Pinksy as a much more caring and involved doctor than his book led me to believe. He's also very personable. Unfortunately the tv show after Nancy Grace rather puts my opinion of him back again!… (más)