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 2

cont.

Typical Depressives and Symptoms

Here are some depression cases as seen and described in capsule by psychotherapists: The depressions are mostly much more severe than you are likely to suffer, but they should be instructive nevertheless.

A young housewife:

Margaret ... was young, about twenty- five and married, as she said, to a very fine man. She held a job which she found fairly interesting and about which she voiced no complaints. In fact there was nothing about her life that displeased her, yet she said she suffered from chronic depression. I would not at the outset have said that Margaret was depressed, because when she came into my office, she always smiled and talked about herself very excitedly in a high-pitched voice. No one meeting her for the first time would guess the nature of her problem unless he was astute enough to see that her manner was a mask. If you ob- served her carefully or caught her off guard, you would notice that at times she became very quiet, and as the smile faded, her face grew blank.

Margaret knew she was depressed. It required an effort of will simply to get up in the morning and go to work...There was an inner emptiness and a lack of real pleasure...Her smile, her volubility and her manner were a facade pretending to the world that everything was all right with her. When she was alone, the facade crumbled and she experienced her depressed state.(2)

A 25-year-old engineer, who said:

"I feel as though I'm dragging myself down as well as my family. I have caused my parents no end of aggravation. The best thing would be if I dug a hole and buried myself in it. If I would get rid of myself, everybody would be upset for a time but they would get over it. They would be better off without me."...

After graduating from college, he had had a succession of jobs and had started a small business that failed. He was not doing well in his current position and was certain that he would be fired within a few days. He experienced a gradual loss of self-confidence as his work did not seem to mea- sure up to the expectations of his employer. Two days before his psychiatric consultation he received notice that he would be fired. He became very discouraged and experienced a complete loss of appetite and considerable difficulty in sleeping. He thought of various ways of killing himself, such as taking an overdose of pills or throwing himself from a high building.(3)

A middle-aged single woman:

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Anne was an intelligent woman who had been successful alike in her career and her creative pursuits. With the collapse of her morale, work became difficult and her creative urge diminished. Several other factors contributed to her collapse, but all were related to the loss of the feeling of femininity and womanhood.

When I first saw Anne, she looked collapsed. Her body was flabby, her muscles lacked tone, the skin of her face sagged, her color was poor. She lacked the energy to breathe deeply and her constant comment was "It's no use." When a patient utters these words, what he generally means is, "It's no use trying. I can't make it." But I had the impression that Anne was saying, "It's no use living. I simply can't make it."(4)

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