A therapist himself, Terrence Real examines the dirty little secret of the American Male: chronic depression. As the author sees it, men who fall prey to depressive disorders are caught in a double bind. Since their feelings of helplessness are considered unmanly, they tend to hide them, which makes the descent into blackness even steeper. The solution? Real urges men (and women!) to cast aside their clichéd notions of gender and to accept that feelings are neither masculine nor feminine but essentially human.