Facing Depression

FAIRACRES PUBLICATIONS 070

‘Many people who suffer depression are rather ashamed of it. They think they ought to be able to pull themselves out of it by prayer and will power, and when their efforts just make things worse they get still more depressed and ashamed.’ Gonville ffrench-Beytagh begins his simple, non-technical and refreshingly honest short work with these words. He was an Anglican priest who himself suffered from depression, for which he underwent psychiatric treatment. Without attempting to undervalue the real suffering which any form of depression brings, he describes his attempts to deal with the experience and the unexpected enrichment which it brought to him. Gonville ffrench-Beytagh (1912-91) spent much of his life in South Africa, becoming Dean of Salisbury (Harare) and later Johannesburg. He opposed apartheid, which led to his imprisonment in 1971-2 and subsequent exile to England, where he spent the last years of his life. He was also a respected preacher, spiritual director and author, whose works include ‘Encountering Darkness’, an account of his imprisonment, and ‘Facing Depression’, the latter also published by SLG Press.