Comments: An Interview With Author Tom Wootton On Depression As An Advantage
This idea is radical only in its recent absence from the stage. Jung talked about meaning in symptoms long ago. The current tendency to medicate symptoms and uncomfortable feelings away makes it all but impossible to even contemplate that they have meaning, that there is something other than avoidance to be learned from them. James Hillman's book, Suicide and the Soul explores this idea also.
I wish the idea that combining therapy and medication were new, but that has been on the table as a preferable option for moderate-severe depression for at least a decade.
Still, it's good to see ideas counter to the current dominant paradigm get some exposure.
Posted by Cheryl Fuller. PhD at January 31, 2008 04:24 AM
As someone who's learned to live with major depression for decades I support these ideas. It's not that everyone has a duty to study the contributions of the saints and mystics, but if you live with the black dog, just study your heroes, and learn the great majority of them endured the same sort of extreme mental suffering. And even learning about the others can itself ease the sense of alienation and un-fitness that we're taught depression means.
I applaud Wooten's efforts, some of us wallowers avoid these explorations because we're told it's irresponsible to wallow, to glorify depression, which is really just laziness, except when depression is fatal. Well, which is it, for me? This is something I want to get a handle on, right? We also live in a fantasy-culture that considers the appearance of happiness a moral imperative.
Depressives are important, we'd know that if America listened to its artists and poets. Serious depression is a sort of aesthetic that can create the empathic, tolerant and soulful beatitude he talks about. But this temperament is not conducive to social and economic dictates, therefor depression is seen as an inviable existential state with no redeeming features, a meaningless biological pathology to be eradicated toot suite. It's a social construct, and that needs to change too.
Oh, and major props for this:
In the final analysis, the only valid criteria for anyone who says they have a handle on their mental condition is how they act.
Something I wonder about daily wrt the hardcore mental health bloggers spewing opinion as fact, with the haranguing hopelessness and dark prognostications that make you want to blow your brains out. There's a sickness denied, and it comes through.
Posted by flawedplan at January 31, 2008 08:52 AM
Do you need to go all the way back to Jung? Almost every piece of general guidance for treatment of bipolar disorder I've seen (I think the NIMH guidelines for one) has emphasized the need to combine medication (when necessary) with regular therapy, lifestyle management, and sometimes spiritual practice.
So the psychiatric profession, at least in its public self-presentation, already gives lip service to some of these ideas. The question is, why in practice do psychiatrists so often disregard them and err on the side of loading down patients with more and more meds?
The most notorious side effects from many (maybe not all) of these drugs all but disappear at lower dosages. The problem, as I think Wooten is saying, is that doctors have bought into the idea that their job is to medicate away 100% of all tendencies to depression or mania, at the expense of patients' total well-being.
Posted by Garth at January 31, 2008 09:40 AM
In the interview he said that "Drugs and therapy should be seen as one part of a much bigger integrated approach." and that "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. "
If you look at the website about the program you will see that what he is doing is truly innovative in many ways. Not only has he assembled an incredible team, he talked them into sharing info with patients in an incredible way.
I must agree with flawedplan, saying that the only valid criteria is how we act deserves major kudos.
Posted by Cathy Vaught at January 31, 2008 02:01 PM
I have struggled with depression, both personally and pastorally, for a number of years. Ironically, one of my first jobs after high school was as a very junior researcher on a series of anti-depression medication trials.
Over the years reading especially (though not exclusively) Christian mystical literature has brought me to a place where I realize that depression, or for that matter another set of psychiatric symptoms, is only on small part of the story of the person. While I don't want to minimize the contribution of contemporary psychiatry and psychology, in both there is a strong tendency to reduce the person to his or her symptoms.
Many of the people who come to me for spiritual guidance have bought into this reductionism. As a result they wrongly assume that freedom from their symptoms means living symptom free. Having been assured by their psychiatrist, psychologist, psychotherapist or counselor that symptom free living is impossible, they then proceed to allow their lives to be dictated by their symptoms and never imagine that they can transcend their depression.
Often I have had therapists actively works to undermine my attempts to help people see that they can transcend their symptoms and enter into the larger circle of meaning that Wootten describes. For me is the real tragedy is not that someone might, for example, have a life long struggle with depression. Rather it is the idea that this struggle is ultimately not only meaningless for their spiritual lives but futile. Biology (or rather biochemistry) is presented to them not only as their destiny, but the precondition for the attention and concern of the professional who is supposed to have their best interest at heart (and least I be misunderstood, I have met more than my fair share of religious professionals who accept biological reductionism when it comes to depression).
I agree with Cathy Vaught and flawedplan, the only valid criteria is how we act on the feelings we have.
Thanks for the interview and the link.
Posted by Fr Gregory at February 1, 2008 11:34 AM
Father Gregory, (assuming fr stands for Father) what a lovely and encouraging comment.
Posted by Sally at February 1, 2008 01:54 PM
This is a great interview, I've read it a few times, and each time I get something more from it. Thanks.
Posted by Stephany at February 2, 2008 10:03 AM
"Depression is just as much a part of bliss as any other state"
Depression and SZ motivated me to go on a spiritual journey. Ten or so years of searching led me to a teaching that explained consciousness in simple terms that I understood. And in a moment my consciousness was converted to the spiritual state. That state the author describes as the large circle which includes the smaller one. That state became permanent in 6 months.
But my depression remained. Even in the midst of spiritual states of energy ecstasies I still suffered from that depression. Of course it was less intense and I was distracted from it. With a great effort I recovered from a state of failed suicide attempts to travel across the country and see the One who revealed this teaching to me. And that experience of seeing a true Enlightened Being was like being in Heaven in the Presence of God. And no I was not having a manic episode, there were perhaps 800 people there having the same extraordinary experience.
I received the spiritual blessing , called Shaktipat, which is a transmission of spiritual energy from this being. It even felt like an electric current descending my spine. And for several months I remained in a higher more blissful state.
Yet even through all of these amazing events the Depression Remained. Finally because of this depression I was separated from this group and this Guru. And that was itself depressing.
The brain is in some ways like a computer in that it has hardware, the physical brain and software which is the programing of our conncsiousness. Spiritual convervsion is about changing the software.
And changing the software does not directly change the physcial brain.
Finally 4 years ago I went to Mexico and had my 18 Mercury Amalgam fillings removed which along with taking vitamins,and avoiding toxic foods has resulted in a great deal of improvement almost to the point of a cure.
I could not meditate for 25 years because of the depression and mercury poisoning. Now I can meditate somewhat.
Chronic depression is from what I have experienced a bio-chemical disorder of the brain. It may be due to genetics or some other thing going wrong in the brain such as mercury poisoning or infection. In its worst form, psychotic depression, it is literally like being in hell with time standing still. It is a horrible disease. And none of the anti-depressants I took stopped it. They mostly seemed to suppress it.
Depression (unlike SZ) is not a spiritual disease. It is not a desired trait for spiritual seekers. It is an impediment for spiritual progress. Happiness is the best trait for them.
Spiritual meditation will not cure depression but it will give one some sense of detachment from it so it is useful.
If you are chronically depressed look to the physical body for the cure first then try Real Meditation not meditation. Real meditation changes the programming of consciousness unlike ordinary meditation which is mostly another form of concentration.
It is said that in the Enlightened Being the cycles of high and low,of happiness and sadness have reached the speed of infinity and thus He is always Happy. In theory one could transcend ones depression with enlightenment however very few people seem to be able to reach that level of consciousness.
Depression itself may force a few individuals to seek a greater degree of spiritual understanding but most will not be willing to make that leap of sacrifice of self that spiritual life requires.
Posted by roky at February 4, 2008 08:50 PM
I find the comment that the only criteria to justify that you have a handle on your illness is how you act to be naive, unfair, and bordering on not facing reality.
When one is shunted back and forth like a rag doll, used as a pincushion for dangerous drugs, which can and do cause blackouts, accused falsely of the most immoral and unethical activities, thrown down to the ground and held there just because you demand your rights in a peaceful and simple manner, taken to the hospital because someone accused you of talking to trees and forcibly held down and injected...etc etc etc
how can you possibly expect that person, often the experience(s) of many of the mentally ill in our country, to behave in a sane and normal manner? How can that person be expected to withstand this kind of trauma, repeated over and over as excuses of helping behavior, and act in a way that does not belie mental illness?
This system has done so much damage to me in the name of helping me that I became suicidal in the process of being constantly and consistently abused by the very people who are supposed to be helping me. After twenty years on these goddamned drugs, forced injections that have rendered me imbecilic and unconscious, unnecessarily restrained, I have a death wish.
Posted by paranoic at February 12, 2008 12:41 PM
This was a great interview. I have had similar ideas for some time. This was the first time I saw someone who agreed with me. I was one of the zombies that Tom Wooton refers to. My medication reduced my productivity to just sitting in a chair all day--every day. I'm glad he said something about curing depression. I may never be cured--depression is a deep part of me. However, people have taught me how to control my moods, or live a life despite how I feel. I've met many people who use mental illness as an excuse to not try anything.
I like what Shakespeare said, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." I can get really deep into self pity by believing that mental illness set me back, took away my girlfriend, caused me to gain over 100 pounds, made me work in jobs that did not pay as much as I was capable. However, I can look back at the self esteem and self confidence I have gained by exercising off the weight, getting a better significant other, working at some interesting jobs, and staying off meds for decades. I may have been able to live in a bigger house or drive a more impressive car if I had not been knocked over by bipolar disorder, but I have had much more exciting life, just being me. Most of all, had I just been richer financially, I would not have helped many people. I share my history and recovery from mental illness to hundreds of people each year. I probably gave them a bit of hope, at least for the day. I remember when there was absolutely no hope in my life--hadn't been for years.
I've written much more about my struggles on my website. I also wrote an article called "Acceptance" which is a bit like Tom Wooton's interview.
Jim S
Posted by Jim S at February 26, 2008 12:23 PM