Writer Julie Barton, was just 22 years old when she became wrapped in the grips of severe depression.  She and her family tried multiple avenues to get her the help that she needed including trials of medication and working with psychiatrists; however, it wasn't until she met a puppy named Bunker that she felt the strength she needed to go on.  

In her memoir Dog Medicine, Barton beautifully and accurately describes the dark depths of depression, from the relentless melancholy to the questioning of the importance of one's life; and expertly addresses themes of abuse, self-doubt, and family, touching on many aspects that add complexity to one's mental health. However, readers can feel a shift in her writing upon meeting Bunker, illustrating just how powerful and life-saving a connection between animal and human can be.  With Bunker at her side, Barton is able to find herself and move forward; a true story of hope and resilience that encourages self-acceptance and forgiveness.


Recommended for:
​Dog lovers, those who have struggled with depression

Catch up on all the news related to mental health and psychiatry from last week!

Recently, author Laurel Braitman, shared with TED followers 5 ways in which animals and humans suffer from similar mental illnesses in her article "More Similar Than We Know: When Animals Go Mad".  Through this and her book Animal Madness: How Anxious Dogs, Compulsive Parrots and Elephants in Recovery Help Us Understand Ourselves (read on to see the synopsis of the novel) Braitman demonstrates how we can better learn about and understand human mental health and illness by exploring the emotional distress of our beloved pets and other animals in the wild.

"Making sense of animal emotional states and behavior, especially when they are doing things that seem abnormal, has always involved a certain amount of projection. The diagnoses that many of these animals receive reflect shifting ideas about human mental health, since people use the concepts, language and diagnostic tools they are comfortable with to puzzle out what may be wrong with the animals around them.

This isn’t to say that the creatures aren’t suffering, but the labels we give to their suffering reflect not only our beliefs about animals’ capacity for emotional expression, but also our own, most popular, ideas about mental illness and recovery. Where, for example, earlier generations saw madness, homesickness and heartbreak in themselves and other animals, veterinarians and physicians now diagnose anxiety, impulse control and obsessive-compulsive disorders in humans, dogs, gorillas, whales and many animals in between" (ideas.TED.com).

Recommended For:
Animal lovers, veterinarians, and anyone interested in human mental health!