The Seven Deadly Myths About Depression

The Daycare
The Nanny

The following article appeared in the May 2006 edition of WellBeing Magazine.  To not embarrass that publication, this article is slightly more conservative than my private opinions related to both the marketing of antidepressants, their effect on the human brain, and the general social ambivalence about the facts.

The term clinical depression finds its way into too many conversations these days. One has a sense that a catastrophe has occurred in the psychic landscape. -- Leonard Cohen

Where have all the happy people gone?   Well, we're still all here, but this thing we call happiness, and our inherent sense of "OK-ness" is continuously being battered and eroded by the ever-increasing amount of "sad-talk" that abounds in our modern culture.   There is more focus on depression and its companion "mental diseases," stresses and anxieties today than there has ever been in the history of mankind.  Of course, some would say that this is a good and positive thing, and various sections of the community strive to continuously bring our attention to the existence of "the scourge of depression."  Yet, these well-meaning attempts to raise public awareness and acknowledgment may often be the very thing that makes matters worse.

So, we will examine here, just what goes on in the human subconscious mind when we are given certain information about our emotional and mental selves and we accept that information without question.

A prominent politician resigns.  His statement is that he must remove himself from office so that he can focus on"his depression."   A media frenzy ensues, followed by a cascade of comments from past and current athletes, other politicians praising his courage, TV personalities, the big guns of the depression industry and support groups --and so begins yet another round of assertion about the dangers of depression, or more precisely, the dangers of not knowing about the ever-increasing "disease" called depression.

But any time that any of our society's beliefs-- what we call the collective cognitive imperative --are challenged, or any attempt is made to deconstruct those beliefs and add new data and understanding, we seem to individually and collectively leap to the defence of the information that has been given us without seeming to make up our own minds as to whether that data is true, able to be qualified, is sustainable and, more to the point, in our best interests.

So, can we not now spend just a little time and take a rather large step back and let ourselves adopt a wide view of what's happening in our society to promote this seemingly never-ending slide toward becoming not only the saddest culture of all time, but the most introspectively humourless?   In other words, if humour and a sense of fun are indicative of a society's good mental and emotional health, then where has all the humour gone?

Let's not kid ourselves or sweep this under the carpet.   We are a culture in danger.   The World Health Organisation predicts that by the year 2020, depression will be the second leading cause of disability throughout the world, and its researchers estimate that 121 million people are currently suffering from depression.

If depression is creeping up and must be faced, learn something about the nature of the beast: You may escape without a mauling. --- R. W. Shepherd MD

Literally forests of books have been written about how depression is a psychological state --an emotional response to life.   (1) Almost everyone experiences depressed feelings as a part of routine living.   In every culture it is recognised that these (depressed) feelings constitute the normal ebb and flow of every person's emotional experience.   In other words, temporary depression is, to all intents and purposes, a normal aspect of our range of feelings.   It's not the intention of this article to fully investigate the meaning and incidence of depression, clinical, normal, or otherwise, but to look at the subconscious effects that much of the medical information has on the way we view our essential selves and the results of those views and belief systems.   From the perspective of Af-x practitioners, trained in considering the subconscious landscape, we are vitally concerned with the "why and how" of our tendency to allow ourselves to get stuck in depressed feelings --to make them stable and unmovable, rather than accept their flexibility and their place in our whole range of human emotional states.   And we are concerned about the effects of emotional contagion (2) in our society; just how "idea mimicry" can begin to creep up on us and usurp our natural abilities to regulate and balance our mood states.

So, this article intends to open up the awareness of the information circulated by western medicine (generated by drug companies), just how that information might not be correct, but more seriously, how the myths created by that information might affect our everyday experience and make of us slaves to the depression mythology.

Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths. --KarlPopper

I encourage you to read the works of psychiatrists Peter Breggin (The Antidepressant Fact Book), Grace E. Jackson (Rethinking Psychiatric Drugs) and Marcia Angell (The Truth About the Drug Companies) to make your own mind up about the verity of the common myths about depression.   While these writings (and mine) may seem to be antagonistic toward the information generated by drug companies and western medicine in general, my focus here is more on how we humans want to believe the "science-driven" mythology rather than question the truth about that information.

Human nature is such that we look for reasons and excuses outside of personal choices.   That is, that we --all of us -- would rather find a "disease" or biological imbalance to blame for our melancholy, than to take responsibility for it being a part of our own doing and subject to our own abilities to correct.

The purpose of this exercise we are undertaking is as much about that existence of an aspect of every human being that subconsciously seeks outside of ourselves for excuses as it is about the existence of the myths that allow us to do that.   So, I am pointing to the fact that drug companies know of our subconscious psychological makeup and are capitalising on our unconscious drive to blame something or someone else for what ails us.   The myths created by the drug companies are designed to achieve by stealth what truth could never do --allow us to feel OK that "my depression is not my fault: I'm not creating it, something else is," and as a result, become helpless victims unprepared to accept that the responsibility is ours to reclaim our ability to balance our emotional lives.

We cannot fight that which is within ourselves without a greater appreciation of the knowledge that makes up "what we believe."   And it's our belief systems that run us, mind and body.   And it's the believing of the myths that may very well be making of us victims of a slowly contaminating slide into a culture of sad and continuously medicated people.

Freedom through Self-responsibility

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into. -- Jonathan Swift

In order to make a difference, we must search, not only for the truth about that which keeps us in what is technically known as a stable attributional style (perennial depression), but also a means by which the deeper subconscious "desire to abnegate responsibility" drive can be unlocked.  The Af-x approach to self-responsible change is just such a program, with an emphasis on the means to disassemble and diffuse our underlying subconscious desire to blame our experience on what the myths offer as escape routes to responsibility.   But rebalancing of our mood and emotional states can only take place if we go at least part-way to understanding what makes us tick.  In approaches such as the Af-x program, we say that "change is inevitable, given new information and realisation."  To understand the power that the depression myths have over us is the first, and perhaps most powerful step toward relief of debilitating depression. Understanding the natural pliable (plastic) nature of depressed feelings can help us break free of the mire of "depression stuckness."

Exercises on the Myths

The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature that distinguishes man from animals. -- Sir William Osler

Everybody knows what myths are.  I've endeavoured to show the power of social myths, particularly those that afford us an escape route from taking responsibility for our own state of being.

Below are listed the seven deadly myths about depression that are prevalent in our culture.  Each of the seven points gives a short and concise view counter to the accepted one.  While some of this information will no doubt create dissent, and severely challenge the belief systems that are important to "holding on to" any depressed state, my intention is for you to merely assess the difference to you that the exercise of examining the myths and their opposite ideas might make.  The wealth of scientific information that supports the busting of these myths is not the point here --that in-depth data can be gleaned in many ways and within serious writings in books and on the internet --the point is to become aware that the myths are largely unsubstantiated and subject to opposition.  Assess the differences that dissenting fact can make to how you feel about each myth.  How does it change your point of view (belief structure), simply by examining and assessing, rather than fully believing the myth-busting propositions?

The Seven Deadly Myths

And now, to the Myths.  It can be useful if you pause at the end of each of the following and contemplate the difference that an acceptance of "opposites" of the myth may bring to your view of depression, your belief system about it and the resultant changes to how you experience life.   First read what the collective mythology is in regard to each topic, read the information that erodes the myth and assess how you feel.   (Some myths may appear to cross over territory with others, but they are all different beliefs, compounding to one "victim-oriented" belief).

First Myth --depression is a disease

Implications/result of accepting this myth; we become accepting of our powerlessness, and more significantly reject our responsibility for our psychological state.

The scientific fact: depression is a flexible psychological response to life.

Implication of questioning the myth: realisation that depression is pliable and that we can take control of its effects.

Second Myth --depression is caused by an imbalance of neurotransmitter chemicals in the brain.

Implications/result of accepting this myth; similar to the above myth, we tend to "blame" that over which we seem to have no control.

The scientific fact: there exists absolutely no scientific proof of this myth.  The creation of the myth has much to do with drug company marketing, and to date, no long-term studies have been conducted on the damage that SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) antidepressants may do to the brain.  In strict neurobiological terms, a depressed style of being causes a depletion of serotonin in the brain, not the reverse.

Implication of questioning the myth: psychotropic substances like antidepressants may not be good for me.  Depression is pliable and we can take control of its effects and break its stability (habitualness) by natural means.

Third Myth --it's all in my head

Implications/result of accepting this myth; the territory of the depression experience is wholly in the brain/mind

The scientific fact: There's no such thing as a mental --emotional condition being experienced wholly by or in the brain.   The brain is incapable of sensory experience.  For further information, you may refer to my article Rethinking Psychosomatics in WellBeing Issue 102.

Implication of questioning the myth: as a whole-body experience, perhaps depression can be alleviated through body activity, not just focusing on medication.

Fourth Myth --Depression is a permanent condition that you can only hope to "manage," rather than cure.

Implications/result of accepting this myth; that you will always be subjugated by depression, in need of constant chemical management.

The scientific fact: In natural experience, depressed feelings are plastic --pliable --changeable.  The "permanent condition" that this myth refers to is the condition of being habituated to depressed style --stuck in the blues.

Implication of questioning the myth: discovering that depression, with help and information, is only as permanent or as temporary as you wish it to be.

Fifth Myth --Depression is a condition that requires an external expert to treat.

Implications/result of accepting this myth; we give up, not only our power to outside practitioners, but our belief in our own resources and abilities to bring about positive change.

The scientific fact: all healing is self-healing. The answers lie within.

Implication of questioning the myth: an increased capability to search within for freedom.

Sixth Myth --becoming the label, "Clinical depression"

Implications/result of accepting this myth; we all-too-eagerly blame the label and accept defeat based on an idea of superiority of any "clinical" diagnosis.

The scientific fact: perennial depression is a result of a stable attributional style --a habit of "feeling this way."   That style is malleable.

Implication of questioning the myth: a realisation that "depression is not doing me; I am doing depression."

Seventh Myth --Any effective non-drug treatment for depression must be the result of conscious and rational counselling methods.   In other words, we must "discover" or "uncover" the cause.

Implications/result of accepting this myth; we need to uncover or discover past causes or trauma in order to understand and change

The scientific fact: depression is an in-the-present phenomenon.  While past events may exacerbate a tendency toward depression, good and effective treatment needs to be about the emotional present and future.

Implication of questioning the myth: a sound grounding in the present and the power of correcting NOW.

The administering of drugs is a chastisement no less than a beating --Aristotle

As we look back over the seven myths above, we must remind ourselves that I have not asked you to necessarily believe the oppositional statements, or necessarily disbelieve what I have called myths.   I need not do that.   There is just so much solid data that supports the idea that the myths are myths.  It's just that all too many of us refuse to look at that data.   But I am asking you to consider that to believe the myths without question --to place yourselves in the hands of information that is clearly designed to potentiate the "depression industry" in its many forms --effectively removes from you your last vestiges of self-power and inherent capacity for change.

Is it a reflection on how ego-centred our society becomes when we so easily forget the wisdom of those who have gone before?  To illustrate, here is a comment from Carl Jung; "society is organized, indeed, less by law than by the propensity to imitation, implying equal suggestibility, suggestion and mental contagion."  In other words, and in this case, is not the infectious nature of the myths the very thing that shapes our society's experience and belief structures about depression?   And does this not describe the contagious nature of the myths of the depression industry today?