I think psychotherapy saves lives and is hugely meaningful and I think that one of the unfortunate aspects of prescription drugs working well is that people tend to think that's enough.

Suicide Note: The calm, Cool face of the river Asked me for a kiss. -Langston Hughes

Somehow, like so many people who get depressed, we felt our depressions were more complicated and existentially based than they actually were.

I am by temperament an optimist, and I thought from the beginning that there was much to be written about suicide that was strangely heartening.

We all build internal sea walls to keep at bay the sadnesses of life and the often overwhelming forces within our minds. In whatever way we do this—through love, work, family, faith, friends, denial, alcohol, drugs, or medication—we build these walls, stone by stone, over a lifetime. One of the most difficult problems is to construct these barriers of such a height and strength that one has a true harbor, a sanctuary away from crippling turmoil and pain, but yet low enough, and permeable enough, to let in fresh seawater that will fend off the inevitable inclination toward brackishness.

I am a huge advocate of prescription drugs given wisely and for the right reasons and the right diagnosis and also psychotherapy.

Without science, there would be no such hope.