Depression as a Healing Transformation

mathepac

I'm currently reading "The Wisdom of Depression" by Jonathan Zuess and he makes a case for allowing mild to moderate depression to run its course with psychotherapy only, seeing depressive episodes as a natural and healthy reaction to prevailing circumstances and encouraging us to look on these episodes as learning and developmental opportunities and as potentially transformative.

He argues that pharmacotherapy in mild to moderate depression is inappropriate and counter-productive as it intervenes in the natural processes the mind and body go through to recover.

Counter-intuitively perhaps he argues that the processes that aid recovery in mild to moderate depression may need to be interrupted / stopped by pharmacotherapy in cases of sever depression and he makes the case that these sever depressive illnesses are the consequence of improper treatment of mild to moderate episodes.

He argues that with certain acute illness. colds & flus for example, intervening with symptomatic treatment of the illness has the potential to turn an acute illness into a chronic one.

I'm paraphrasing above so don't take me to task please.

I find his arguments in certain cases compelling and I'm looking for other opinions, pro & con.

The book is a light read, well written (case studies a bit tortuous IMHO) and I'd recommend it and certainly not for for the curiosity or wacky ideas factor.

Kooli

Sounds interesting. A lot of that would resonate with my own experience, and there's definitely a growing community of experts who believe a lot of our problems come from our constant efforts to be happy and to escape negative feelings.

Tony Bates has a similar approach I think - that healing comes from facing into our depression rather than turning away from it or trying to get rid of it. And with clients I would often talk of the 'wisdom' of their emotions when I can sense that they are trying to get away from them.

Oliver Burkeman's recent book 'The Antidote' is kind of along the same lines (although I haven't read it yet). He suggests that happiness comes from embracing "failure, pessimism, insecurity and uncertainty - the very things we spend our lives trying to avoid."

krd

Kooli wrote: »

Sounds interesting. A lot of that would resonate with my own experience, and there's definitely a growing community of experts who believe a lot of our problems come from our constant efforts to be happy and to escape negative feelings.

Well, there is a huge difference in how you escape, or attempt to escape.

There is a big difference between every day sadness and boredom. (That may have an important function as a motivator - and as a function of empathy (it could also just be physical tiredness). ) And....unbearable suffering that must be escaped.

Reading this thread made me think of Dr. Feelgood, Max Jacobson. He was a physician to the stars. He would start his clients out on a little amphetamine and sleeping pills, and then graduate them to full blown prescription medication dependency. I've read a few accounts of what happened to his patients. And a few stories of similar doctors - people going in with mild weariness, and then spending a decade or more in a hellish chemical fug, only emerging from it eyes blinking years later, when they'd stopped the medication and got away from the doctor.

There's been a 400% explosive increase in the use of antidepressants in the US since the early 90s. But this isn't a new thing - the doctors are just moving away from prescribing tranquillisers like Valium. And before that there were other things.

Tony Bates has a similar approach I think - that healing comes from facing into our depression rather than turning away from it or trying to get rid of it. And with clients I would often talk of the 'wisdom' of their emotions when I can sense that they are trying to get away from them.

A really good book to read is Barbara Ehrenreich's Smile or Die. Thinking positive thoughts alone is not good enough - and maybe it's worse than useless. The glib "healing" and positive affirmations maybe completely worthless if underneath the person has a toxic self-lacerating mode of thinking. Someone with a rictus grin through clenched teeth.

All this positive thinking nonsense sells well, because it's what people want to hear. Glib answers sell well.

The Buddhist retreats, and upping the dose of happy pills may be giving some people the inner serenity of one of Bacon's screaming Popes.

Oliver Burkeman's recent book 'The Antidote' is kind of along the same lines (although I haven't read it yet). He suggests that happiness comes from embracing "failure, pessimism, insecurity and uncertainty - the very things we spend our lives trying to avoid."

No, I think really happiness is achievable. I know what formula works for me - through experience. It's not where my life is at the moment - and dropping a prescription pill is not going to get me there either. It's a combination of material and environmental factors. They are not unrealistic or impossible conditions to achieve - but they are presently out of my reach.

Burkeman's "happiness" may be the comfort of giving in to learned helplessness. Lie down and accept your fate. People are finding themselves in work, social, and family environments, where other people in those environments are using anxiety, insecurity, torture, consciously or not, to induce learned helplessness in their victims for the purposes of control. Just resigning yourself to the misery is not happiness or anything even near it.

Burkeman may be in some private hell he feels it's impossible to escape from.

krd

Something I have heard in passing recently, that I don't really know if it's true.

Supposedly, the reason American doctors are prescribing so many antidepressants is to protect themselves from being sued.

If someone turns up at their doctors, in a state of distress, if the doctor does not prescribe a medication, and then the patient runs out an shoots up a cinema full of people, then the doctor may be held liable. They will be sued. On the other hand if they prescribe the patient an antidepressant, and the patient runs out and shoots up a Sikh temple. The doctor will not be considered liable (as long as they correctly prescribed in line with the drug manufacturers guidelines - which allows a huge leeway). The pharmaceutical company may be sued. There may be a pay out, or there may not be.

It's in the interests of the pharmaceutical industry and the medical profession to say these drugs are safe and effective. They are simply not.

From what I have seen. In many cases not only are they ineffective, but they may be causing a deterioration in the mental health of patients prescribed these drugs.

Pharmaceutical companies exhaustively test certain aspects of the drugs, to make them ready for market and to protect themselves against litigation. But of course they're not investing any effort of time in investigating the possibilities that their drugs are having a negative impact on mental health. Doctors are safe too. They prescribe a drug. If the patient begins acting crazier, they either put it down to there underlying mental health problem, or they go "oh, drug isn't working for you, nothing to worry about we'll switch you to another drug".

If the patient is on the drug, and they're depressed, it's put down to "oh, the antidepressant isn't working hard enough to lift them out of their depression", not that the drug may be deepening their depression. If the patient becomes manic, it's the drug isn't working hard enough to suppress their mania. Again, not that the drug is the cause of the mania.

I have watched people deteriorate on these drugs. If they're not effective within a few months they should be stopped and some other kind of treatment tried. Or they shouldn't be prescribed for mild depression at all.

Someone I know personally. They've been on antidepressants for over 10 years. They are progressively getting worse with each year. Their doctors keep switching the medication. And the latest result was weeks of mania that looked indistinguishable from a methamphetamine addicts psychosis. Now, I believe after ten years of antidepressants, not only is their mental health worse, but they have an addiction that neither they nor their doctors realise as and addiction, to these medications.