Last year i used to be at the seminar of Jan Rubal “How to stay joy and creativity during a depressive field”. Yang talked about the essence of depression and dealing with it. i used to be afraid that the seminar would be difficult and viscous, just like the topic itself, but, surprisingly, it had been fun, fulfilling and joyful.
I was so impressed by Jan's work that i started to review the difficulty more deeply: I read articles and books, listened to lectures, including a “poetic” lecture by the Italian psychotherapist Gianni Franchesetti.
Small cumingout: i personally have had a depressive experience, and there has been a period in my life once I was taking antidepressants. Therefore, this subject is on the brink of me. during this article, i will be able to share ideas from Jan Rubal and Gianni Franchesetti, also as my very own observations.
According to the WHO, depression is that the leading explanation for unhealthiness and therefore the leading explanation for disability worldwide. Why is that this happening?
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| Depression: Types of depression, Causes, Treatment |
The diagnosis reflects the age
An interesting phenomenon: the foremost common mental disturbance reflects the culture of the age .
For example, within the era of Freud, such a disorder was hysteria. At that point , the subject of sexuality was strongly taboo, and therefore the hysteroid organization of the personality is predicated on the defense mechanisms of "repression" and "sexualization": the hysteroid tends to displace from consciousness, forget "unacceptable" thoughts and desires, primarily sexual ones. This phenomenon arose as an effort to compensate and balance the ecu culture of the time. Actually, the whole methodology of psychoanalysis was built on the psychosexual theory of development.
Even earlier, within the 1830s, the diagnosis of "compulsive flight" was widespread in America. Who was this diagnosed with? It's hard to believe - slaves! some time past , it had been believed that the will to run away was a mental disturbance .
The slave's desire to flee and be free was considered a pathology ...
In an era as fast as ours, where there's no time to prevent or pause, sadness and sadness becomes a pathology, says Franchesetti. Today we don't have the proper to require breaks: fortnight of vacation is enough. Burnout is so common then serious that burnout at work was recognized by WHO as a disease last year.
We have no time to figure through our losses, our grief, our unfulfilled hopes. during a culture of “pace and running”, a culture of “eternal time deficit”, where there's no place for “digesting” and stopping, everything that's not reduced to “consume, run, produce, achieve” becomes a deviation from the norm.
We sleep in a manic time once you got to do everything and you'll get anything. A manic experience is that the illusory feeling that anything is feasible , and it denies anything about pause, stop, or restraint.
Our time may be a time of achievements and manias, beautiful photos on Instagram, goals, the results of the year, where almost everything is feasible , and if you do not use it, then something is wrong with you.
Our era are often called the age of "successful success". and therefore the prevalence of depression may be a response to the present cultural challenge, this trend of our time.
What is depression
Depression may be a reaction to the loss of hope of getting what you aspired to, what you wanted to urge . it's a stopped feeling, a stopped mourning process.
Do you skills the effectiveness of antidepressants is studied? in fact , on poor mice.
Mice are placed during a cylinder crammed with water, from which it's impossible to urge out on their own. After a short time , the active attempts of the mouse to urge out of the cylinder are replaced by a “state of despair”, and it practically stops moving.
This condition is named the depressive-like behavior of the animal. then , the study drug is run to them and therefore the increase in motor activity is assessed. this is often seen as a correlate of the antidepressant effect.
Just as mice lose hope of getting out of a trap, so we experience a depressive experience as a loss of hope to urge out of our personal impasse.
How depression is handled
Depression is experienced as a loss of hope to realize another. just like the loss of a spark to maneuver towards another.
“No one is in a position to assist me, nobody will give me a hand to tug me out of this pit. and that i haven't any hope that such an individual will appear. It just doesn't exist. Or he was, but died. "
When we refuse to attend for such an individual because he won't come, we feel a flash of intense pain. And so as to survive during this pain, we turn inward.
Depression may be a thanks to address myself so as to not die: I anesthetize myself, start saving energy.
Depression is like lethargic sleep, like bear hibernation, during which the metabolism slows down. These are the defense mechanisms of bears that are expecting spring to survive.
Franchesetti in his lecture shared a stimulating experiment called Still Face Experiment.
Edward Tronick of Harvard University conducted an experiment called "Lifeless Face" (or "Stone Face"). In an experiment, he asked parents to behave with their small child as was common , and after a short time - freeze. Parents were instructed to stay watching the baby, but to offer the face an absent expression.
At first, the kid is surprised, doesn't understand what's happening, then he tries to draw in the mother's attention altogether possible ways, but doesn't receive a reaction. Then the baby begins to protest against the loss of contact, to urge scared, cry or get angry. Defense reactions are included. And if this doesn't help, the phase of withdrawal begins. the kid loses hope of reaching the reference to the mother, he gives up.
According to Franchesetti, if after 20 minutes the kid doesn't receive a solution from the parent, he loses the sensation of his own existence, there's no more sense of existence: there's no connection.
Many have heard stories when in Soviet maternity hospitals, babies were left alone and even said, "if he cries, he will stop." And now most are wondering why there are numerous traumatized people in society.
In depression, I cannot approach the opposite because he's too distant .
And then everything freezes ...
Within a depressive experience, time stops and distance increases. It seems that it'll always be so. Depression seems to be eternal. Time passes very slowly, as if you're falling into something viscous.
In depression, you understand everything, but you can't do anything about it. Getting out of bed, leaving the house, preparing food - all this becomes a challenge, an important burden. You experience yourself within the grip of nothingness. Existence itself becomes too painful. People in depressive experiences are cognizant of what's happening to them, but they can't mobilize energy to maneuver on. Everything is asleep, everything remains , everything is expecting spring.
In depression, I await the warming to return , once I will accumulate energy, once I will digest the experience, i will be able to undergo the pain. A depressive experience may be a defensive reaction to the loss of tons of energy. this is often a solution to things "I fought for an extended time, but I failed."
Also, a depressive response is expressed within the sort of burnout, when for an extended time I gave a touch more energy than I received. Depression helps fill the reserve through periods of inactivity.
Types of depression
There are different classifications of types and subspecies of depression, but i will be able to not linger over them now. i prefer the two types that Franchesetti distinguishes:
1. exogenous depression may be a response to loss. Loss of a big beloved , loss of freedom, loss of job.
2. Melancholic depression (endogenous) is depression that it's difficult to work out the cause.
Reactive depression is required to figure through losses. Here we are helped by social support and support in relationships. If there's not enough time to measure the grief from loss, but there's pressure from relatives and society, this experience turns into a heaviness that never goes away.
You've probably heard such phrases: “ what proportion are you able to experience”, “Start life anew”, “It's beat the past”, “Look to the future”, “You are looking for it for 3 years, that's enough”. These and other messages stop our natural action of mourning, and depression arises in response to the present stop.
Melancholic depression is essentially unrelated to the events of our lives. It represents an extreme sort of depressive experience. In such an experience, we experience not such a lot a sense of despondency as a protracted sensation of physically perceptible heaviness.
An important characteristic of such depression is lack of interest.
It is curious that in Latin the word "interest" consists of two parts: inter - between or within, esse - to exist, to be.
The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality, that is, interest.
Lack of interest literally means no being between us.
Nothing is sensible , because there's no sense of reference to life, with people - there's no interest.
This sensation is experienced as a viscous, painful heaviness, as if an important plate constantly presses on the chest: there's no strength for love or money , even to urge out of bed.
Movement in depression
Franchesetti distinguishes three main sorts of "movement" within the depressive experience:
1. a really heavy atmosphere of slowness, everything drags on very slowly.
2. Circular movement. people that are depressed find themselves during a vicious circle. once I lose interest in life, life seems like the movie Groundhog Day: everything repeats itself and it makes no sense.
3. Narrowing. We cease to note the variability of things that surround us, we cease to ascertain the brightness of the colours of life. Emotionally, we experience dullness, frailty, the unbearable weight of emptiness. during this experience, the range of experiences is reduced, the range of interests is narrowed.
This experience is sort of a whirlpool during which we slowly move during a circle, and therefore the stream narrows and pulls us down.
The dynamics of the depressive experience is indeed sort of a slow funnel in swampy muddy water that pulls us down. We instinctively want to urge out of the maelstrom, we are scared.
Likewise, we are scared once we see a beloved who is during a depressive experience, we instinctively want to tug him out of this swamp. We are trying to find something positive in his life, we try to try to to something, we are saying to him “Look, life is beautiful!”, But it doesn't get easier for him, then we start to withdraw or get angry. this will cause him to feel guilty, a good greater sense of worthlessness and loneliness. during this way, we intensify depression.
This is an abyss, into which we are afraid to seem , but by looking into it, we'll be ready to see what was hidden, what we didn't notice before.
If we trust the flow that pulls us down, we will find a resource during this flow, go down and push faraway from rock bottom . Then to travel upstairs and swim out.
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