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 18

cont.

Some Examples of Value Therapy

Frankl provides interesting examples of how depression can be relieved by a procedure like Values Therapy:

Once, an elderly general practitioner consulted me because of his severe depression. He could not overcome the loss of his wife who had died two years before and whom he had loved above all else. Now how could I help him? What should I tell him? Well, I refrained from telling him anything, but instead confronted him with the question, "What would have happened, Doctor, if you had died first, and your wife would have had to survive you? "Oh," he said, "for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!" Whereupon I replied, "You see, Doctor, such a suffering has been spared her, and it is you who have spared her this suffering, but now, you have to pay for it by surviving and mourning her." He said no word but shook my hand and calmly left my office. Suffering ceases to be suffering in some way at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.(15)

Frankl says that "in logotherapy [his name for a process like Values Therapy] the patient is actually confronted with and reoriented toward the meaning of his life...The logotherapist's role consists in widening and broadening the visual field of the patient so that the whole spectrum of meaning and values becomes conscious and visible to him."(16)

Frankl calls his method "paradoxical intention." His procedure can be understood in terms of altering negative self-comparisons. As noted in Chapter 10, Frankl asks the patient to imagine that his actual state of affairs is different than what it is. For example (17), he asks the man whose wife died to imagine that the man himself had died first and that the wife is suffering from losing him. Then he leads the person to compare the actual with that imagined state, and to see that the actual state is preferable to the imagined state on the basis of some deeper value--in this case, the man's value that his wife not suffer from losing him. This produces a positive self-comparison in place of the former negative self-comparison, and hence removes sadness and depression.

Values Therapy may be thought of as a systematic and understandable form of what used to be called "changing one's philosophy of life". It operates directly on the person's view of the world and himself.

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Based on his personal experience, Bertrand Russell urged us not to underestimate the curative power of such philosophical thinking. "My purpose is to suggest a cure for the ordinary day- to-day unhappiness from which most people in civilized countries suffer...I believe this unhappiness to be very largely due to mistaken views of the world, mistaken ethics..."(18)

Many psychologists--particularly those with psychoanalytic training--will question whether such "deep" problems as depression can be solved with such "superficial" treatments. But Values Therapy is not superficial--indeed, just the opposite. Of course it is not a perfect therapy, even for those whose depression is not well-handled with other therapeutic approaches. In some cases it may be that the struggle to make one value dominate another requires too much energy of a person, and perhaps a complete psychoanalytic cleansing would bring the person to easier ground (though psychoanalysis' track record with depression is poor). In other cases, the person may lack the powers of reasoning to carry out Values Therapy, at least by himself. Or, a person may have a strong motivation to stay miserable. Lastly, a person's hunger for love and approval may be unshakable.

The Role For A Counselor

A counselor can certainly help many people in their struggles to get their values in order and hence overcome depression. The counselor's role here is that of good teacher, clarifying your thoughts for you, helping you concentrate on the task, pushing you to stay at it rather than running away from the hard work. For some people who lack the discipline and mental clarity to do their own Values Therapy, a counselor may be indispensable. For others, however, a counselor may be unnecessary or even a distraction, especially if you cannot find a counselor who will help you do what needs to be done for you. Too many therapists insist on doing what they are accustomed to doing, or cannot work within your value structure but insists on inserting their own values into the process.

Other drawbacks of working with a therapist are discussed in Chapter 00. Before you try a therapist, you might first consider working with the computer program OVERCOMING DEPRESSION that comes free with this book.

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