Depression and Spiritual Growth
A. Therapy
1. Depression Medication and Psychotherapy
To provide background, I should say a few words about the medical treatment
of depression, and the choice between medication and psychotherapy as modes of
treatment. By "psychotherapy," I mean only the modern (post-Freudian)
approaches. In my view, this is not an either-or situation. The two
approaches to therapy have complementary strengths and functions.
My experience is that both play an essential role in helping the victim
return to normal functioning. From personal experience and observation of
others, I believe that medication is the primary agent capable of healing a
victim who is locked into a very deep depression or a wildly manic state; in
such cases there is clear indication of abnormal brain function, which is best
dealt with by medication. But once the main force of the illness is broken,
there is a wonderful opportunity to gain insight from psychotherapy. To
better understand oneself: one's goals, desires, limits, hopes, strengths, and
weaknesses; how one's long-term behavior patterns may have been structured by
the illness, and how one may develop new and more successful patterns for the
future. Curiously, one can be open to spiritual insight and growth even before
medication begins to take effect. It is in this process that the most profound
changes in one's internal "landscape" can occur. I will return to
these matters at greater length below.
The most common metaphor used by people who are CMI (Chronically Mentally
Ill) to describe an especially severe episode of depression is a
"crash". It is apt because it feels right: "going down in
flames," "crumpled wreck" on the ground, and so on. Perhaps it
also hints at the magnitude of the task at hand if one is ever to
"fly" again.
My experience, and what I have learned from other CMI people, is that one
never really recovers; "recovery" means a return to the
original state before illness. This is the wrong metaphor because these
illnesses are not cured, but are brought under control, put in
remission. (For a very strong remission, such as mine, the difference is
invisible and unimportant to the outside world; but it is very important
to me because I need to manage my affairs differently in these states if I am
to remain well.) Thus, what one does is put out the flames, and then
rebuild or reconstruct what one can, using both parts from the
wreckage, and new parts crafted in the processes of psychotherapy and spiritual
growth. In a sense, one dies and is reborn; you are not
the same person afterward. Whether you like the new person better or worse than
before depends on how much relief you get from the ravages of the illness (with
medication), and how successful you are in making a new "you" in the
rebirth experience.
I should also mention that there are alternative approaches to therapy. I
believe that they work best in addition to the standard methods described
above, rather than as a substitute. One is meditation. In rebuilding from my
1986 depression, I learned a powerful meditation technique from the discipline
of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, which I found eliminated paralyzing attacks of
intense anxiety for me, and allowed me to discard the tranquilizers I had been
prescribed. When I described the process to my doctor, she was quite emphatic:
"If it works, use it! You don't need to know why it works."
I also discovered that meditation provided a channel for me to feed back,
into my subconscious, acknowledgements of messages received from it, and
updates on the current state of the "outside world," i.e. the state
of my conscious world. Again, I have no idea how this process works; but it
worked very well indeed during a year of very effective psychotherapy, which
included interpreting deep and powerful images offered up by my subconscious in
response to the structural changes we were making in my conscious belief
system, and my emotional posture.
Today, I look back at that time, often fraught with difficulty and
discouragement, as one of the richest and most rewarding times of my life.
Similarly, after my excursion into serious mania in 1996, and the rebuilding
needed after my mania-induced auto accident in 1997, I found it very helpful to
have a strong support group. Owing to the limited resources available in
Champaign-Urbana, I had to join an Alanon group, which, despite the fact that
neither I nor anyone close to me has a problem with alcohol, provided a group
of sensitive people dealing with many of the same issues I was. I also acquired
an outstanding "sponsor" with whom I met weekly for discussions which
were far more effective for me than any psychotherapy had been. The point is:
the resources are out there. Use them!
A second alternative is to draw upon the riches of religious experience.
Quakerism, being based on direct experiential knowledge, both of our own
spirituality and of God, is an excellent example. We shall discuss this
powerful approach in sections C and D that follow. Another religion that leaps
to mind here is Buddhism. Their central idea of leading life, at all levels, in
a meditative state of uncritical acceptance of what is, is also very
effective in bringing about the kinds of inner changes that can facilitate
growth for a new life in the rebuilding/restructuring process. For people with
a Judaic or more conventional Christian background, there are the tremendously
rich resources of the Bible. For example, one need only read the first three
verses of Isaiah 43, where God makes a promise of his deep and lasting
guardianship of each us, to be comforted in a way that can open one to life
with a totally new perspective.
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