Good Mood:
The New Psychology
of Overcoming Depression
The answer lies in the
commonly-observed fact that, in
addition to inner peace, along
with Feeling X comes joy and a
sense of awe at life and the
universe. Even more, Feeling X
tends to produce a cosmic sense
of kinship with all people and
all nature, which dissolves
anger, envy, and greed. For
this the term
"purification of the
heart" certainly fits.
The sequence, then, is not
from purity to Experience X,
but rather from the search for
Experience X, to achieving
Experience X, to purity of the
heart. This process can remove
the depression following loss
of faith that an active God
intervenes in the world to
punish evil and reward virtue.
Only some fabled yogis can
achieve Feeling X permanently.
And few of us would want to.5
But Buber stresses that, for
the Psalmist, God says, "I
am continually with thee."
(Christians would say that
grace is always being offered.)
This means that the possibility
of Feeling X is always there,
to be achieved whenever a
person diligently seeks after
it, whenever a person directs
and molds the mind in these
ways that conduce to inner
peace.
One may choose to think of
the occurrence of Feeling X as
purely natural, a product of
one's mind (self-control and
imagination) and of body
(effects of breathing and
posture on the nervous system).
Or one may believe that a
transcendent non- natural
force, commonly called God, is
responsible. But if one chooses
the latter course, the God
concept is not a God involved
with the course of human
affairs or reward and
punishment, but rather a God of
the creation of inner peace and
purification of the heart,
concerning which "there is
nothing left of Heaven."6
Not all people can or are
willing to follow Buber's way.
It requires that a person not
automatically reject such a
spiritual way. It also requires
that the person have a modicum
of natural capacity for
spiritual experience, just as
enjoying music requires some
natural capacity (though
perhaps all persons are so
endowed). For those who cannot
follow Buber's way there is at
least one other way, completely
secular. This way also is
appropriate for a
loss-of-meaning crisis.
A Secular Response to
Religious Despair
The secular way is to
inquire into what a person
considers important - which
might be non-violence,
happiness for one's children, a
beautiful environment, or one's
nation's success. Upon inquiry,
most people will agree that
they have a "taste"
for their own values and
believe these values to be
important without having to
justify them from a religious
or world view.
Values Therapy then asks the
person simply to treat as
important the values he says he
believes are important - to
recognize that he is asserting
and affirming that there is
meaning in these values and
their associated situations.
Bertrand Russell commented that
no philosopher is in doubt
about objective reality when
holding a crying baby in the
middle of the night. Similarly,
secular Values Therapy asks a
person to acknowledge that
which is implicit in his values
and behavior, to wit, that the
person does find meaning in
various aspects of life even
while the person is ostensibly
in doubt about meaning in
general. This contradiction
sometimes leads a person to
abandon the general question
about whether life has meaning,
on the grounds that the
question is a meaningless
linguistic in the person's
mind, and itself the source of
the unnecessary and avoidable
depression. (For others, of
course, statements about the
meaning of life can be
unconfused and meaningful.)
SUMMARY
Sometimes a person with a
traditional Western belief in
God loses that belief because
events in the world do not
square with the traditional
belief in God the Father who
rewards good and punishes evil.
A related cause of depression
is "loss of meaning."
about one's life. There are two
approaches to such crises -
spiritual and secular. The
chapter discusses both these
approaches that are so
intertwined with a person's
most fundamental beliefs.
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