Good Mood: The New Psychology
of Overcoming Depression
We can write the comparison formally as a Mood Ratio:
Mood = (Perceived state of oneself) (Hypothetical benchmark state)
If the numerator (perceived state of oneself) in the Mood Ratio is low
compared to the denominator (hypothetical benchmark state) --a situation which
I'll call a Rotten Ratio--your mood will be bad. If on the contrary the
numerator is high compared to the denominator--a state which I'll call a Rosy
Ratio--your mood will be good. If your Mood Ratio is Rotten and you
feel helpless to change it, you will feel sad. Eventually you will be
depressed if a Rotten Ratio and a helpless attitude continue to dominate your
thinking. This precise formulation constitutes a new theoretical understanding
of depression.
The comparison you make at a given moment may concern any one of many
possible personal characteristics--your occupational success, your personal
relationships, your state of health, or your morality, for just a few
examples. Or you may compare yourself on several different characteristics
from time to time.
If the bulk of your self-comparison thoughts are negative over a sustained
period of time, and you feel helpless to change them, you will be depressed.
Check yourself and you will observe in your mind such a negative
self-comparison ("neg-comp" for short) when you feel bad, whether or
not the sadness is part of a general depression.
Only with this Self-Comparisons Analysis can we make sense of such
exceptional cases as the person who is poor in the world's goods but
nevertheless is happy, and the person who "has everything" but is
miserable; not only do their actual situations affect their feelings, but also
the benchmark comparisons they set up for themselves.
The sense of loss, which often is associated with the onset of
depression, also can be seen as a negative self-comparison (neg-comp) -- a
comparison between the way things were before the loss, and the way they are
after the loss. A person who never had a fortune does not experience the loss
of a fortune in a stock market crash and therefore cannot suffer grief and
depression from losing it. Losses that are irreversible, such as the death of
a loved one, are particularly saddening because you are helpless to do
anything about the comparison. But the concept of comparisons is a more
fundamental logical element in thought processes than is loss, and therefore
it is a more powerful engine of analysis and treatment.
The key element for understanding and dealing with depression, then, is the
sadness-producing negative comparison between one's actual state and one's
benchmark hypothetical situation, together with the attitude of helplessness
as well as the conditions that lead a person to make such comparisons
frequently and acutely.
Now we are ready to ask: How can you manipulate your mental apparatus so as
to prevent the flow of negative self-comparisons about which you feel
helpless? There are several possibilities for any given person, and any one
method may be successful for you. Or perhaps some combination of methods will
prove best for you. The possibilities include: changing the numerator in the
Mood Ratio; changing the denominator; changing the dimensions upon which you
compare yourself; making no comparisons at all; reducing your sense of
helplessness about changing the situation; and using one or more of your most
cherished values as an engine to propel you out of your depression. Sometimes
a powerful way to break a logjam in your thinking is to get rid of some of
your "oughts" and "musts", and recognize that you do not
need to make the negative comparisons that have been causing your sadness.
I'll say a few words about each possibility now, and I'll discuss each general
tactic at length later in the book.
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