How to Defeat Depression – Ancient Ayurvedic Medicine Meets Modern Behaviour Therapy

Depression in the clinical sense is an illness that infiltrates your whole body. It affects the way you feel about things, situations and persons, and the way you feel about yourself; it affects the way you eat and sleep, and how your memory is working. Depression, as a mental disease, is going along with body processes, or vice versa. Depression cannot just be blown away, it has to get treated. You need the help of specialists, and then you can start helping yourself.

The authors are two well-known specialists in the field of two theory and practice-proven systems and methods i.e. the Ayurvedic Medicine and the Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. They know each other since twenty years and now put their knowledge and experience together to write the first book about treating depression by a combination of Ayurveda and Behaviour Therapy. The book is a scientifically based, rather compact and highly readable compilation of backgrounds, approaches and case studies.

A Prof. Norbert W. Lotz is well known psychologist in Frankfurt. He has established Frankfurt Institute for Rational Emotive and Cognitive Supervision and Training (FIRST) in Germany. He is practising psychotherapy fin the last 25 years in Europe. He is expert in RET and conducts seminars on this important subject as well as other psychological subjects in various Countries in Europe as well as in USA. He has studied Ayurveda with Dr. Sunanda Ranade and Prof. Subhash Ranade. He is the co-author of the book - Ayurveda die wissenschaft von lange leben. This book has been translated in English, Polish and Italian languages. Dr. Sunanda Ranade is expert Ayurvedic gynecologist and nutritionist. She is Director of International Academy of Ayurveda, Pune, India and is working in the field of Ayurveda and Yoga since last 40 years. Dr. Sunanda Ranade has written hundreds of articles on Ayurveda, which have been published not only in Indian magazines and newspapers but also in Italy and Germany. She is also the author of several books on Ayurveda, which have been published in Marathi, English, Italian and Spanish languages. She is working as visiting Professor to various Institutes in United States, Germany, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Israel and many other countries. She has also given lectures on Ayurveda at various Universities in Bogota, Colombia, Mexico and Ecuador. She has conducted many courses on Gynecology, Ayurvedic Nutrition and Ayurvedic massage for physicians and common people in these countries. She has substantially contributed for CD ROM Dhanvantari that is the first CD on Ayurveda.

More than twenty years of fruitful cooperation between a dedicated Ayurved practitioner and a dedicated Cognitive psychotherapist proved that working together with patients is possible. Both of us have appreciated the different diagnostic points of view, the mutual support and the integration of specific applications in curing, aftercare and prevention of diseases.

So, not in the sense of mixing and watering down Ayurveda and Cognitive psychotherapy, but in the spirit and the awareness of their power and their limitations we have got the distinct impression that it can be a big help coping with patient’s diseases by mutually ‘replenishing’ the two methods.

Depression is an illness that infiltrates your whole body. It affects the way you feel about things and situations, and you feel about yourself, the way you eat and sleep, the way your memory is working. Depression is a mental disease going along with body processes or vice versa. Depression cannot just be blown away, you have to get treated. You need the help of specialists, and then you can start and have to start helping yourself. For these two aspects we wrote this book.