Out of the Blue: Six Non-Medication Ways to Relieve Depression (Norton Professional Books) (11 page)

2. Depression may help people to be more effective problem solvers by getting them to ruminate about (think deeply about and mentally go over and over) problems they face. In one study, happy or secure participants showed shorter decision times and imitated others’ behavior, whereas sad or insecure participants exhibited more systematic and rational behavior (Andrews & Thomson, 2009).

3. There is some evidence that being depressed helps people focus their attention and reduces distractibility (Andrews et al., 2007; Yost & Weary, 1996).

4. Depression may help people connect better with others or help to create social cohesion. This is because, when we’re depressed, others often have to care for us. If we were raised to think of ourselves as strong and independent, depression may force us to be vulnerable and ask for help or rely on others. Also, people in a depressed person’s social network—family, friends, colleagues, members of her religious community—may develop more empathy toward her (Hertel, Neuhof, Theuer, & Kerr, 2000).

Now some of these ideas may seem like a stretch to you, and indeed they seem so to me, but I’ve been curious about why so many of us have suffered from depression and would still like an answer, and as far as I can tell evolutionary psychologists are the only ones examining this area. These arguments are summarized in the book
How Sadness Survived: The Evolutionary Basis of Depression
by evolutionary psychologist Paul Keedwell (2008).

What I appreciate about these ideas is that they get me to think about depression in a different way and to develop more appreciation for the possible value of depression. If seeing depression as unremittingly unhelpful hasn’t helped, perhaps instigating a shift in your client’s relationship to depression to one of curiosity about its potential value may provide a little foothold to help her get some relief.

Or perhaps not. If you find that these ideas upset you or your client, just ignore them and move on to another section.

FOLLOW YOUR WOUND

More compelling to me is my own experience of the value of depression. My depression (and working through it) ultimately gave me a sense of meaning and purpose and a life direction.

Years ago, Bill Moyers interviewed the world mythology expert Joseph Campbell. He asked Campbell, “If a student asked you for advice on what to do with his or her life, what would you advise?” Campbell answered, “Follow your bliss. If you do that, you can’t go wrong.”

Soon many people who had heard this bit of advice from Campbell were justifying all sorts of indulgences by claiming they were following their bliss. Campbell became frustrated at this misunderstanding of what he’d said. He had meant that if one follows one’s deepest soul longings, one will find one’s life path and direction. He said, “Perhaps I should have said, ‘Follow your blisters’ instead.”

I appreciated the revised version, since that’s what I had done. I had followed my wound rather than just my bliss and found my work, my life, and my life’s mission.

Helen Keller said, “I thank God for my handicaps, for through them I have found myself, my work and my God.” Through my “handicaps,” I was both sensitized to the suffering of others and fascinated by the human psyche and emotions. This led me to become a psychotherapist.

Depression can spur someone toward a new life direction. The wound of depression can be the place from which the light enters the wounded person.

After I became a therapist, I was abashed to discover that not all of my fellow therapists were as optimistic as I was about the possibilities for change in their most challenging and stuck clients. Psychotherapy theories often dwell on what’s wrong with people, and all too often psychotherapists spend much time, energy, and attention on diagnosis and finding an explanation for the problem rather than on solving it. I found myself becoming frustrated and even angry at this state of affairs and resolved to change it by hook or by crook—or mostly by writing books (over thirty so far) and traveling around the world offering trainings designed to influence my field to become more effective and optimistic.

So, in the wake of depression, I think two energies that are often seen as negative—the blisters of life, if you will—can arise strongly for the person who has passed through this intense, transformative experience. I call these energies “Dissed” and “Pissed.”

By Dissed, I mean disrespected and dissatisfied. When someone comes out the other side of his depression, what suffering has he become exquisitely sensitized to and what situations is he moved to change because of that sensitivity? Some people who have gone through the process become advocates for the “mentally ill.” Others have a mission to stop cruelty to animals or the suffering of the poor or infirm.

Pissed is a slightly different energy, but closely related. Where and when and about what does your client get righteously indignant? What does he feel moved to change the world to stop or prevent?

The key to using both of these energies is to transform them so they don’t drag your clients down or hurt others. Your goal is to help your clients use that energy to make positive contributions to the world or to others.

Psychologist Sam Keen wrote,

We all leave childhood with wounds. In time we may transform our liabilities into gifts. The faults that pockmark the psyche may become the source of a man or a woman’s beauty. The injuries we have suffered invite us to assume the most human of all vocations—to heal ourselves and others. (Keen, 1992)

It won’t do any good for someone to show up at work or school or the psychiatrist’s office with an AK-47 and create more suffering. It won’t do any good for him to hurt himself. He must seize this energy and move it out into the world in a way that relieves suffering. Depression is the crack that can also let the light out.

Jungian analyst Marion Woodman says, “Real suffering burns clean; neurotic suffering creates more and more soot” (1985, p. 152). For those of us who have been burned by the fires of deep depression, there can be a certain cleansing clarity that arrives after recovery. Using this cleansing clarity to discover the direction for the rest of our lives can transform our relationship with depression. Again, we must be careful not to follow this line of inquiry too soon or to be glib about it with our clients, but mining the richness resulting from having gone so deep and having suffered so much can yield treasures that can enhance the person’s life for years to come.

Here are some questions to consider with your client as he comes out of depression:

“What do you wish others had known about what you were going through?”

“If you had an hour of prime time to tell others about depression, what would you say?”

“Without minimizing the pain or being glib about it, what do think you have brought from that experience that can stay with you and help you in the future?”

“How has having been so depressed changed you?”

“Is there any newfound appreciation or direction that has resulted from your having come through this terrible ordeal?”

“Is there any cause that you now feel more moved by since you have experienced so much suffering?”

Here is a sample dialogue showing a way to highlight and use the Dissed energy resulting from depression in a way that can start to move the client forward:

Client:
That was probably the worst experience of my life, being that depressed.

Therapist:
Now that you’re coming out of it, how do you think that having been so depressed and suffering so acutely has changed you or sensitized you?

Client:
I think I will be kinder to people and have more empathy and compassion for anyone who is suffering. I will be more patient, I think. It used to be that when other people were complaining about something, I would be very judgmental, thinking if only they would be more positive, they wouldn’t have so many troubles. I think I’ll be a better person for having gone through this hell.

Therapist:
And is there any cause or area you think you would like to take up or be more active in since developing this post-depression sensitivity?

Client:
I think I’d like to volunteer more; maybe at a homeless shelter. I think a lot of homeless people have mental problems, and maybe helping to care for them would be a way I could give back in gratitude for my having lived through this and come out of it.

We will revisit this subject in a different way in Chapter 8, in which we will discuss post-depression thriving and I will provide some ideas of elements that can shift depression from being merely a wounding experience that the person is terrified of revisiting to one that contributes to the rest of his life in a positive way.

CHAPTER FIVE

Strategy #4: Challenging Isolation and Restoring and Strengthening Connections

Research shows that social connections reduce stress, help people cope with trauma, and are important components of better moods, but people who are depressed often withdraw from their best social connections or push them away with unpleasant or flat behavior. This chapter will detail not only the relevant research but also ways to help depressed people create and maintain intrapersonal connections, social connections, and transpersonal connections to help alleviate their depression.

DISCONNECTION, ISOLATION, AND THE THREE REALMS OF CONNECTION

One of the things about troubles, especially emotional and mental disturbances, is that they tend to isolate us from others. We withdraw either because we can’t relate or because we feel like a burden to others. Or perhaps we push people away with unkind or irritating behaviors.

Unfortunately, this is probably the exact opposite of what we need to do to feel better. Connection is our natural way of being as humans. We evolved in tribes, groups, and communities, and they seem to be a vital part of our well-being. Not that spending some time alone can’t be helpful, but disconnecting from others too much or for too long can be harmful. Isolation has been shown to create physical stress and immune system problems. That’s why putting prisoners in solitary confinement for too long is seen as cruel and unusual punishment. In this chapter, we will take up helping people who are depressed to reconnect and recover from their sense of isolation and alienation.

There are three realms in which clients disconnect in depression:

1.
From themselves.
Depression often results in people feeling disconnected and alienated from themselves.

2.
From other people.
Our clients tend to push people away or draw away from people when they’re in the grips of depression.

3.
From something beyond themselves and beyond people.
You might call this the spiritual, or you might just think of it as the bigger meaning and purpose in our lives—the reason we’re here and get out of bed each day. Depressed clients often lose the raison d’être of life, the big picture.

This strategy, then, involves helping people mend or create connections in these three realms. I have identified seven pathways to reconnection:

1.
Inner self; deep self; heart; soul; intuition

2.
Body; physical self and sensations

3.
Another being

4.
Others; a group; a community

5.
Art

6.
Nature

7.
Bigger meaning or purpose; God or higher power

The first two are personal, the next two are interpersonal, and the last three are transpersonal.

PERSONAL CONNECTIONS

Connecting to the Core Self

One day, in the midst of my serious depression, I felt as if I were back to normal.

I have no idea what brought on this remission, but it seemed as if the fog had lifted and I could see clearly for the first time in months. I could also see how bad I had been and how distorted my thinking had become.

I decided to sit down and write myself a letter that I could read on my bad days, since I thought it likely I would have more. And I was right. After that one-day reprieve, I was back down in the pit of despair the next day and for many more months.

I told myself in the letter that if I were reading this, I was depressed and my perspective was distorted. I reminded myself of the people who loved me, of my good qualities, and of the fact that, like a bad drug trip, this depression was bound to end someday and that I should hold on.

By the time I began to come out of my depression, that letter was well worn from my reading it over and over again. Sometimes I couldn’t connect emotionally to it, but at other times it reminded me that I had once felt okay, and that perhaps I could get back to that sense of things again.

That letter was a lifeline. It connected me to myself when I had become unmoored.

Depression not only disconnects people from others, but it usually alienates people from themselves. They forget who they are. They lose touch with their values, their strengths, their good qualities—hell, even their bad qualities.

Depressed clients often tell me that they’ve lost their sense of self. They don’t recognize themselves, either in the mirror or in their thoughts and actions. It seems some alien has taken them over and robbed them not only of joy and pleasure but of the sense of who they are.

So, the first connection to revivify, if possible, is the connection the client has to herself. The “self” goes by different names: True Self, Deeper Self, Authentic Self, Intuition, Core Self, Heart, Soul, Inner Self. Whatever you call it, I think most of us know when we’re connected to ourselves and when we’ve lost ourselves and that connection.

How is this reconnection done? That answer is different for everyone. One of the ways I did it was through music. I love music, both listening to it and playing it (I play guitar and piano). I remember listening to a record over and over again (by Essra Mohawk, an obscure singer/songwriter; thank you Essra—you helped save my life) and hanging on the words she sang, reassuring me that someone loved me and would someday know me.

Those words sang out hope to me—hope that I would be loved and not so lonely, that someone would understand me someday. They were like a lifeline to me. They helped me connect to myself, the self beyond despair.