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 20 Summing Up

The aim of this book is to better understand and cure depression--people's generally, and your's in specific. The core of depression is prolonged sadness plus a sense of worthlessness, in the context of an attitude of helplessness. To understand depression we must therefore understand how sadness is caused, and why it is prolonged in some people.

The most important idea in the book -- the key difference between modern scientifically-successful cognitive therapy and the older psychoanalysis which was never able to prove success in curing depression -- is that you have the power to alter your mood by changing your current patterns of thought. The current patterns of thought are largely under your conscious control, and are not dictated irrevocably by your childhood or your genes.

The Mood Ratio

More specifically, your feelings are determined by your Mood Ratio, the comparison between what you think is your present state of affairs, and a counterfactual (hypothetical) benchmark state of affairs. You feel pain when a negative comparison -- a Rotten Ratio --- is in your mind. And when a negative comparison is combined with a sense of helplessness you feel sadness. If this occurs habitually, you will experience depression. The concept of Mood Ratio and the accompanying Self-comparisons Analysis constitute the key new theoretical and practical element presented in this book. This structure integrates and reconciles the apparently-conflicting central ideas of the main writers within the field of cognitive therapy.

The "numerator" in your Mood Ratio is what you believe your actual state of affairs to be at present. If you misconceive your actual situation to be worse than it really is, you expose yourself to a painful Rotten Ratio.

The hypothetical benchmark-state "denominator" in your Mood Ratio may be, for example, circumstances you formerly were accustomed to but lost, or a situation you expected or hoped for but that has not occurred, or a state of affairs you believe you ought to achieve but have not achieved.

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Actual present conditions do not explain well why some people get sad (depressed) for a long period of time while others do not. There are a variety of factors that may be at work, singly or together, to produce a propensity for depression in an individual. These influences may usefully be thought of as existing in the present, though their causes are in the past: an example is poor methods of interpreting reality. Other influences must be seen in the context of the past, such as the death of a parent or severe parental punishment for not being sufficiently successful or dutiful. Different factors combined in a variety of ways cause depression in different individuals.

Though understanding the historical roots of one's depression may be illuminating, the main work of combating depression deals with the contemporary thinking processes. You must reform the ways that you think so as to control the self- comparisons that you make.

Anti-depressant medications have an important part in helping some depressed people banish the pain of depression. But true cure calls for psychotherapy, by yourself or with the assistance of a therapist. A wise therapist can help you, but it is not easy to find a therapist who will be good for you, and an unwise therapist can make depression worse.

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