10 Ways to fight depression

This is a small reflection on the latest social media craze: “10 tips to fight…”

On a purely subjective note...there is nothing that scares me more than a therapist with a list. Although I understand that we use lists to spatially organise complicated and chaotic subjects, it can be misleading as it implicitly implies that there is a sort of "road map" that a sufferer can follow to find their way out of depression

. This of course has nothing to do with the chaos of actually experiencing depression...and this has unfortunately become very popular in the social networks recently...10 ways to find happiness....15 ways to beat bipolar disorder....etc...

The idea of being able to "fight" depression implies that it is firstly fightable and secondly following these 10 easy steps one will be armed with the weapons with which to fight it. That of course leaves the proverbial ball of responsibility in the clients court and if they are unable to "fight" and indeed "defeat" depression, then there is something fundamentally wrong with them. Of course it is impossible to fight against depression as it doesn't exist as an object; we can’t see it, hear it or taste it, the only thing we see is people behaving in a depressed manner. 

As is the case with other “battles” against illness, it is often the economically privileged that are at an advantage..."I'm a famous person and read about how I won the battle against cancer/depression/drugs" which of course begs the question...what about those who didn't win the battle? What does that say about them? Didn't they try hard enough? Or maybe they got their just rewards for being working class, fat and poor.

So when we talk of "fighting" we must make sure that there is a level playing field and everybody has the same opportunities and access to resources. 

When we behave in a depressed manner we often feel incoherent with how we see ourselves and with what modern society demands of us...so we start to "fight" the depression. which invariably makes it worse...we are told that being depressed is weak, strong people fight it...but we don’t have the strength, the economic resources or the social support...but everywhere you look, every blog on the internet tells you how easy it is with 10 steps to "fight "beat" and "overcome" depression. This in itself feeds thoughts and feelings of inadequacy, helplessness and hopelessness.

  

Alternative Diagnosis

 

Now is the time to appropriately challenge doctors in cases where psychologists have ethical concerns about the Emotional Wellbeing of the children with whom they work.

Lovely Poem written by Dave Traxon, member of the Division of Educational and Child Psychologists Committee of the British Psychological Society

Everyday children are being harmed by over-prescribing psychotropic drugs.

A child leaves alone.

Once clinicked,
Having been white coated
Or diagnosed all too quickly;
Milgrammed -
Not with higher voltage
But with a higher dosage,
Than any child should be given
At such a vulnerable growth stage,
As it interferes with their living…..
Their light diminished…..
Their soul extinguished…..
Their personality giving
In to someone else’s….
Model of conformity.

A child leaves alone.
 

Counterphobia

Garganta de Cuartos in Losar de la Vera

I’m soon off on a short weekend trip to Losar de la Vera in Extremadura, this is a beautiful part of Spain and pretty much off the beaten tourist track. It is an area formed of many small rivers and pools by the water that runs off a mountain range known as la Sierra de los Gredos.   

I found this photo of an old stone bridge that crosses the river and did some investigation work dicovering that the water is deep enough so that you can jump off this eight metre bridge without hitting the bottom (in theory).

I now have  a strong desire to throw myself off the bridge when I get there, which could be considered fun when one is 20 years old, but I am now 50 and got me thinking about what am I trying to prove or to overcome. Considering that I’m afraid of heights the first thing that comes into my mind is a concept called counterphobia.

Counterphobia is described as actively searching out the very thing that creates anxiety, it is a kind of defense mechanism used in an attempt to overcome fear. It is the opposite of avoidance, where a phobic person will go to great lengths to avoid the thing, person or context that creates the fear.

Freud was considered by many as a counter phobic as he continually ruminated on an intellectual level about the very thing that he most feared the emotional world and sexuality. 

Counterphobia is the terrain of the adrenaline junkie and the horror movie fan, as facing fear and overcoming it can be an exhilarating experience and can also help in learning that fears can be faced and overcome, but the continued searching out of fearful experiences can leave one in a continued state of fight or flight.

So this weekend when I’m stood on the precipice of the bridge, as I surely shall, I will be conscious of facing this fear as something fun and not from a counter phobic position of trying to prove to myself that I don’t fear fear, because I obviously do.

Science lets us down once again

My Doctor is everything that you expect from a Doctor, she is careful, caring and spends an enormous amount of time with each patient, highly annoying if you’re waiting to see her.

 But as most Doctors her usual line of intervention with any physical ailment is stating as she hands you the latest medication “take one of these a day and if you’re not better in 15 days come back and see me”. All this without even blushing, which leads me to reflect on what we know about illness and how we know it.

My father is recently suffering from a neurological disorder that sends him into small seizures when ever he gets excited by anything. He has had several scans and all types of tests which show no structural or functional alterations in his central nervous system. He does also have small strokes, but these seem to be apart and do not explain why he will spontaneously launch into an involuntary shaking fit.

Now science, and specifically medicine needs order to maintain its objectivity and a scientific quantitative approach is not providing answers to my fathers’ very subjective and qualitative disorder. Medicine is failing to give importance to the psychosocial relationship, that is the functional relationship my father has with his environment. After all living is simply the contact between ourselves and the outside world and how we make sense of that.

But while he struggles to relocate the way he experiences his life, science blunders blindly on repeating the same test over and over again in a futile attempt at self justification (I’m talking here on a more theoretical level and by no means disrespecting the wonderful work of the Doctors that actually attend to my father)

Right now my father is making meaning out of his experience and not all is helpful I fear, because to think is to think about something and as Gestalt therapists would say his “illness” has become a new figure in his attention spotlight.

My father also comes from a generation that traditionally gives great respect to the natural sciences and so of course this inability to provide him with an answer is even more confusing for him. I repeat my upmost respect for the professionals who have treated him, but would it be too much to ask that after recognising the fact that science is failing to give an answer, that he receives the attention of a psychotherapist. Not just a brief intervention of 6 sessions recommended by the NHS, but with someone who is not emotionally involved and with whom he could build a meaningful relation.