Beyond the Blues: Child and Youth Depression

A fine combination of useful information and moving anecdotes, Maureen Palmer's Beyond the Blues focuses on depression—both symptoms and treatments—in adolescents. While there is no simple medical test for the condition, behavior patterns may include constant sadness, withdrawal from peers and family, sleep and/or eating disturbances, lack of concentration, poor performance in school, self-inflicted wounds, and suicidal thinking (although some of these are obviously not all that uncommon, the film helps distinguish between normal bouts of the blues and clinical depression). Parents need to be aware that any prolonged friction between them and their kids could be a mask for depression, which can be triggered by a number of different factors, including the loss of a loved one. Stories about specific teens who have dealt with depression—such as 16-year-old Kerry, whose problems began in the sixth grade and who thought for years that it must be normal to feel down all the time—make for powerful drama here. Highly recommended. [Note: the companion titles Fighting Their Fears: Child and Youth Anxiety and A Map of the Mind Fields: Managing Adolescent Psychosis are also available separately or together with Beyond the Blues at a series price of $299.] Aud: H, C, P. (T. Keogh)