Good Mood: The New Psychology
of Overcoming Depression

Chapter 1

THE NATURE OF THE TROUBLE AND THE FORMS OF HELP

WHAT DOES "DEPRESSION" MEAN?

The term "depression" means to psychiatrists and psychologists a continued state of mind with these central characteristics: (1) You are sad or "blue." (2) You have a low regard for yourself. In addition, (3) a sense of being helpless and hopeless is an integral part of the depression process. A variety of other symptoms such as poor sleep may or may not accompany these two core symptoms. They are not central to the depression.

Sadness is not equivalent to depression, and not all sadness is pathological. Everyone is sad from time to time, sometimes in response to genuinely sad events such as the loss of a loved one. The sadness that follows such a loss is natural and even necessary, and should be accepted as such. Unless the sadness continues un-normally -- that is, continues so long that it disturbs a person's life, and the person feels that there is something wrong -- the label "depression" does not apply. But if the sadness does continue un-normally, and then picks up a feeling of worthlessness as a companion and turns into a prolonged state, the condition then becomes an enemy to be fought.

Very occasionally there may be some doubt about whether to call a person "depressed", especially when sadness continues for a long time after a tragic death. In such a case, the person may not feel worthless. But almost always depression is clear-cut, though the depth of depression may vary.

Sadness is caused by the mechanism which will be described shortly. If you understand and manipulate the mechanism properly, you can get rid of the sadness. The depression mechanism does not by itself produce or explain low self-regard. But if you operate the mechanism appropriately, you are likely to get rid of the low self-regard, too, and at the least you will not be preoccupied with it and ravaged by it.

This is the mechanism which causes the sadness in depression: Whenever you think about yourself in a judgmental fashion--which most of us frequently do--your thought takes the form of a comparison between a) the state you think you are in (including your skills and capacities) and b) some other hypothetical "benchmark" state of affairs. The benchmark situation may be the state you think you ought to be in, or the state you formerly were in, or the state you expected or hoped to be in, or the state you aspire to achieve, or the state someone else told you you must achieve. This comparison between actual and hypothetical states makes you feel bad if the state in which you think you are in is less positive than the state you compare yourself to. And the bad mood will become a sad mood rather than an angry or determined mood if you also feel helpless to improve your actual state of affairs or to change your benchmark.

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