Appendix (4): Good Mood: The New Psychology of Overcoming Depression

Good Mood

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Good Mood:
The New Psychology
of Overcoming Depression

Chapter 10

cont.

Lest you doubt that a person can cure himself of depression without assistance from a physician or psychologist, keep in mind the millions of people who have done just that, in our times and in earlier times. Religion has often been the vehicle, though this is clearer in Eastern religion than in Western religion. The continued practice for 2500 years of Buddhism, which aims to reduce suffering, should itself be proof enough that at least some people can successfully combat depression without medical help. Granted, there do not exist scientifically-controlled experiments measuring whether just the passage of time would have induced as much improvement as such intercession, as we do have controlled experiments for cognitive therapy with the aid of a therapist (see Appendix A). But people's own experiments on themselves, sometimes using such depression-preventing methods and sometimes not, would seem to constitute rather reliable evidence.

People's power to radically change the course of their own lives has been quite underestimated in recent years, in large part because of the emphasis of Freudian psychology on childhood experience as determinants of the adult's psychological state. As Beck described the dominant view in psychotherapy prior to cognitive therapy: "The emotionally disturbed person is victimized by concealed forces over which he has no control."(2) In contrast, cognitive therapy has found that "Man has the key to understanding and solving his psychological disturbance within the scope of his own awareness."(3)

Even delinquency and drug addiction can be "kicked" by some people simply by deciding to do so. Alcoholics Anonymous provides massive evidence that it can be done. Another example is the Delancey Street Foundation of San Francisco: When a reporter asked its director about his "pioneering" new way of rehabilitation, he was told, with glee: "Yeah, you could say we have a 'new' way of fighting crime and drugs. It's a way that hasn't been tried lately. We tell 'em to stop."(4)

The simple fact is that all of us, all the time, make and carry out decisions about how our minds will act in the future. We decide to study a book, and we do so. We focus our attention on doing this or that, and we do it. We are not beyond our own control.

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As interesting evidence that "ordinary" people can willfully alter their own thinking so as to make themselves happier at some times than at others, consider the example of Orthodox Jews on the Sabbath. Jews are enjoined not to think sad or anxious thoughts on the Sabbath (not even when in mourning). And for roughly twenty-six hours each Sabbath they do just that. How? The way a house-wife chases out cats when they come in--as if with a mental broom.

This raises the question: Why not perform the same simple trick all week long? The answer is that the world prevents it. A person cannot, for example, neglect thoughts of work all week; one must make a living, and the world of work inevitably implies strife as well as cooperation, losses as well as gains, failure as well as success.

The operational question is whether you are better off attacking your depression on your own, or getting the help of a professional counselor. The appropriate answer is - a definite maybe.

The help of a counselor clearly can be valuable, as even such self-help advocates as Ellis and Harper agree:

One of the main advantages of intensive psycho- therapy lies in its repetitive, experimenting, revising, practicing nature. And no book, sermon, article, or series of lectures, no matter how clear, can fully give this. Consequently, we, the authors of this book, intend to continue doing individual and group therapy and to train other psychotherapists. Whether we like it or not, we cannot reasonably expect most people with serious problems to rid themselves of their needless anxiety and hostility without some amount of intensive, direct contact with a competent therapist. How nice if easier modes of treatment prevailed! But let us face it: they rarely do...

Our own position? People with personality disturbance usually have such deep-seated and long- standing problems that they often require persistent psychotherapeutic help. But this by no means always holds true.(5)

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