When I wrote my first book, Healing Depression: A Holistic Guide (New York: Marlowe and Co., 1997), I spent three years researching at the Emory University Medical Library.

I wanted to demonstrate how natural healing remedies and holistic alternative medicine would work so much better for treating depression than psychiatric drugs.

However, I have always agreed with Mother Theresa:

“I will never attend an anti-war rally; if you have a peace rally, invite me.”

I recognized while I was writing my book that if I went straight at the prescription drug industry – fighting them directly – I would be buried by a multi-billion dollar, world-wide industry that the website Infowars claims spends $2.4 billion every year on direct consumer television advertising. Who can beat that kind of muscle? 

Instead, I chose to be positively focused.

“This is how you can heal your mind naturally,” is the basic message of my first book.

The website Natural News has a list of the top 10 violence-inducing drugs: 

Of these top 10 violence-inducing drugs, five of them are antidepressants:

  • Prozac
  • Paxil
  • Luvox
  • Effexor
  • Pristiq

If you are any of your loved ones are taking any of these medications, you may do well to ask yourself, “Would natural methods work better for me?”

One of the benefits of natural healing methods is that they rarely if ever have any negative side effects. I have never heard of any person using an AK47 after taking a vitamin, exercising or receiving a natural healing treatment for depression.

My book, my website www.totalfitness.net and this blog www.catherinecarrigan.com are all full of articles about how you can heal yourself naturally.

Since my first book was published in 1997, it became the handbook for the Holistic Depression Network, which was based in Seattle, Washington, and was translated into Chinese.

At the time I was writing it, I thought to myself, “If I help even one person avoid what I went through, this whole thing is worth it.”

I wrote the book after getting off lithium and antidepressants after 18 years. I have been free of psychiatric medication now for 20 years – thank God, I may add! The truth is that my entire life has been dramatically better in every way since getting off these drugs.

I made about $3,000 for the three years work I put into my first book, which is why it took me another 17 years before I published my new book, What Is Healing? Awaken Your Intuitive Power for Health and Happiness (Atlanta: Total Fitness, 2013). My new book now has 18 five-star reviews on www.amazon.com. You can read all those reviews at this link: http://amzn.to/1a8RCoI

In my work as a holistic alternative practitioner, I have now helped more clients overcome depression, anxiety, eating disorders, alcoholism, attention deficit disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and other emotional challenges than I can even count.

Frankly, it’s not that hard.

Part of what my first book was about is to stop brainwashing yourself that if you have a mental/emotional problem that antidepressants are the BEST way or the ONLY way to solve the problem.

I use kinesiology to balance your neurotransmitters. I use nutrition – both food and supplements – to restore your brain chemistry. And I do deep emotional and spiritual healing to clear out the root issues.

If you have been taking any of these drugs on a regular basis, please do not beat up on yourself.

Resurrect your soul and awaken the healers within yourself. You have more natural healing power inside of you than you can ever imagine.

I have spent the past 20 years of my life studying and practicing every natural healing method that I could find that actually worked.

What is healing? Healing happens when we address the core issues, build our willingness to get better and take the actions necessary to live a happy, healthy life.