An Interview With Author Tom Wootton On Depression As An Advantage

Over the past year, several readers have pointed me to the writing of Tom Wootton, who is author of The Depression Advantage (2007) and The Bipolar Advantage (2005). He certainly has different ideas about how to address depression than does the rest of the Western world and I recently interviewed him via email about his bold claim that depression is an advantage.

Depression is an advantage. What are you talking about?

How we choose to look at our experiences in life and how we react to them determines whether it is an advantage or a disadvantage. Depression is a very painful state that has a very real chance of killing you. Most people would say that it is the worst thing that ever happened to them. A few have chosen to use it as a catalyst that changed their lives while they gained power over it.

It is not the hardships we face that matter, it is what we become as a result of facing them. Some of the greatest people in history have said that depression is what made them great. The Depression Advantage is about facing our condition while accepting the possibility that we might gain from it instead of trying to hide from the experience. Avoidance leads to a diminished life where we live in fear that some day depression will return and we will not be able to handle it. When we learn from it we find that we gain power over it and it does not affect us the same as it used to.

Our first depression seemed impossible to survive, but as we experience deeper states we find that the level that first seemed impossible can now be managed very well. We can even help others because we understand it and can empathize with them. At least in lower levels, we gain an advantage over depression instead of it having the advantage over us. Taken to the extreme, Saint John of the Cross said that it was his "Dark Night of the Soul" that made him a saint.

Your book dips into religion and faith without really swimming in them per se. What is their role in recovery?

The Depression Advantage is about spiritual growth and the role that depression can play in it. Spiritual growth is not the same as religion or faith. Blind religion and faith can keep us from learning the spiritual lessons that are available to us. My previous book offended some people because I was open about my spiritual crisis. At the time it triggered me to hear fundamentalists claim that Jesus would cure me. I am now at best an agnostic, but if I did believe in God, why would he cure my depression when he let so many of his saints go through worse? According to Saint Teresa of Avila, she was given her pain because it helped her to see God.

Depression has four different elements; physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. The book goes into detail about the different kinds of pain and how they affect us. Seventy percent of us have a physical pain associated with depression. We all know about the mental and emotional pain, but we all have spiritual pain too. The spiritual component is what makes us question why this is happening and to search for meaning in our experiences.

The process of introspection--looking within for understanding--is a spiritual process. It leads to insight that has the power to change our behavior and how we react to circumstances. The ultimate spiritual challenge is to change our behavior so that no circumstance can make us act other than the best we are capable of. Every religion has people they refer to as saints, sages, or other terms of endearment. The saints themselves say that we all have the capacity to be like them. Saint Francis was in extreme pain until his last breath, yet acted "saintly" to the end. Kind of blows a hole in the theory that depression is to be avoided or that faith is going to remove it.

You see medications as serving what role in fighting depression?

For people who are outside of a range that they can handle, drugs can be an effective tool to help lessen the symptoms. Unfortunately, too many people are on dosages that turn them into zombies. A new trend in the psychiatric community is to talk about an integrated approach, meaning combining drugs and therapy. Drugs and therapy should be seen as one part of a much bigger integrated approach. Some day it will be criminal to give people psychiatric drugs without the therapeutic supervision needed to make sure it is working to keep them in a range that works.

Some people prefer to be against the whole psychiatric industry. While I share many of their concerns, I prefer to try to change them from within by offering steps in the right direction. I speak to medical groups and challenge them to lower the dosages as we do the hard work to get our lives under control. My ideas have been met with great acceptance and have lead to some great strides in the right direction.

We are about to launch a pilot program that combines physical health, mind skills, life planning and coaching, relationship counseling, spiritual counseling, psychotherapy, and peer support during a six month program. Almost every component is lead by an M.D. or Ph.D., leaders in their respective fields. It treats the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, relationships, and career aspects of one's life as an integrated whole. (More information on this at the end of the interview.)

You kind of turn the idea of "curing" depression on its head. Instead of eliminating it you seem fascinated by depression and its power and its ability to force deeper states of awareness. What's up with that?

We will never learn anything be refusing to even examine it. The more we avoid depression the more power we give it. The common misconception is that if we can avoid having depression for a long time we are cured. We are never cured as long as there is the possibility that it may return and we will have no control over it. With understanding we can be "cured" in the real sense. I still get deeply depressed, but find great insight in the experience and have learned to function in it. There is a whole chapter on redefining functionality in the book, but it is off the main topic of your question.

I have always been fascinated with the mystical experience and the myriad ways that it was triggered in people. Some people have them spontaneously as I have throughout my life, but my diagnosis as bipolar made me question the legitimacy of them. How do we know they are not just delusion? For thousands of years, people have explored every way imaginable that would help to create such a state. I spent my life practicing many of the techniques to varying degrees of success, but it was facing depression that made me realize that the greatest method for me was the one I was avoiding.

When I started researching for the book I found many examples of people who had pain way worse than I ever did, yet chose to find meaning in it. They were looked up to as the greatest people the culture had ever produced. Their greatness was not in some kind of mystical state. Their greatness was in how they acted and how people felt in their presence. If facing depression helps me to become more aware and to change my actions then it is the best thing that ever happened to me. In the final analysis, the only valid criteria for anyone who says they have a handle on their mental condition is how they act. Everything else is truly delusional. A new trend is to talk about mindfulness as a solution. I think it is a great tool, but unless it leads to actfulness, what good is it to be more aware that you are acting badly?

We all have the same capacity to turn depression into greatness, but it takes a tremendous effort. Doing the hard work to get a handle on this condition is the hardest thing you will ever do, except for one thing - not doing it. By avoiding the condition instead of facing it we suffer needlessly for the rest of our lives. Even if we don't get to some hypothetical level of awareness, facing it will give us power over it and lessen the pain. More importantly it might even help us to change the way we treat others.

If you read the clinical literature, people with bipolar disorder and depression are supposed to be doomed. Do you buy that?

Many people are sold the idea that they need to accept a diminished life. They are so attached to their illness that they get upset if anyone says they can do something about it. They use their condition as an excuse to not have to change their behavior and justify everything as a result of some unproven "chemical imbalance." By refusing to buy into the diminished life concept, we have the strength and ability to rise above our circumstances. When we finally figure out that feeling sorry for ourselves does not lead to anything but more pain, we have taken the first step toward turning our condition into our advantage.

What advantage was depression for you personally?

Depression is the best thing that ever happened to me. It gave me humility, insight, empathy, understanding of the complexity of life, made me stronger, and most importantly, helped me to change my behavior and become a better person. I spent a huge part of my life believing that the spiritual path was about obtaining higher states of consciousness and mystical experiences. It was depression that made me realize that it is only in our actions that we find spiritual growth. The following is from the conclusion of the Francis of Assisi chapter of The Depression Advantage:

"Although Saint Francis also had depression as a central part of his change into a saint, I have included his story because he is the greatest example of how we should act. Saint Francis is revered because he chose to act perfectly in all situations. If we could follow his example in even minor ways, the world would be a much better place.

"Many followers of both western and eastern philosophies speak of the duality of the world. This duality is seen by many to be the work of the devil, or to the eastern world, delusion. Disease and health, pain and pleasure, loss and gain—these are all examples of the opposites that hold together our false reality.

"I often hear the idea that once we attain enlightenment, we live in bliss. If bliss is defined as great joy, is that just one side of duality? I think something may have been lost in the translation of the original meaning.

"If enlightenment brings bliss, why were the saints in this book suffering until the end? I think it is because bliss does not mean happy, it means acceptance that everything is part of the same oneness: as I noted in the chapter "The Art of Seeing Depression:" 'It’s all milk.' Depression is just as much a part of bliss as any other state. Peace, love, and joy are naturally felt, even when you are also experiencing great pain. If you read what Saint Teresa, Saint John of the Cross, or Saint Francis had to say, it will become clear: bliss is not the opposite of duality, it includes duality as a subset.

"Picture two small circles next to each other. One is pleasure and the other is pain. The common concept is that we get to a point that is outside of them both and move to another circle where there is only peace, love, and joy. Bliss is incorrectly thought of as beyond the duality, a place where pleasure and pain do not exist.

"Now picture a larger circle with the pleasure and pain inside of it. Picture it with all conditions inside of it: pleasure, pain, gain, loss, happiness, sadness, health, illness, etc. If you focus on the big circle, you are in bliss, even though you are still experiencing some of the elements inside. If you lose the perspective of the big circle, you feel only the small circles, and the pain seems more intense.

"Some people think that the problem is that we have wrong thinking. They propose that we catch ourselves thinking sad thoughts and replace them with happy thoughts, as if that is going to change the picture. It is the same as focusing on the two small circles. We will never fully understand our condition until we begin to focus on the big circle and find meaning in our experiences. As long as you think that sad thoughts are an illness you will not find the advantage of your condition.

"The example of our saints is that they got to a point that they were in the same state of oneness no matter what happened to their body or mind. Saint Francis was in incredible pain at the end of his life, yet had the ability to keep focused on the big picture. It is not that he was somehow separate from his experiences; he experienced them just as you and I would. But since he was focusing on the big picture, he was in bliss. Bliss is the state that is not affected by the duality.

"As our saints grew in understanding, they still experienced the pain, but from the perspective of bliss it did not affect them as much. That is why Saint Teresa said: 'All these illnesses now bother me so little that I am often glad, thinking the Lord is served by something.'

"It takes the perspective of extreme pain for some of us to see the truth of bliss. The Depression Advantage is that we have the chance to understand something that few ever will."

Information on Wootton's integrative approach to depression can be found in the Success Center section of his bipolaradvantage.com website.

Posted by Philip Dawdy at January 31, 2008 12:03 AM
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