This book is offered as a lifeline to people at the bottom of the bottomless pit of depression. It will explain the research and the thinking behind the tough love approach, much of which may be new to you because it flies in the face of current trends. With positive, common sense strategies, this book enables you to regain emotional control, showing that it is possible to combat depression without resorting to drugs or costly and often ineffective therapy. The first part of the book offers fresh insights into depression and into how it can be overcome. The second offers practical advice, culminating in a series of challenges that will enable you to change your entire attitude to emotional health and achieve a more positive and hopeful outlook on life. To be of any real use to someone in despair, a self-help programme must provide, step by step, a practical stairway out of hell. This is that stairway.