Almost 30 years ago I graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelors of Arts degree in Psychology. (Go Gators!) Why do I bring this up you might ask? Well, someone very close to me is currently battling a bout with depression and I have been trying to pull out all my mostly forgotten knowledge of the craft so I thought I'd share. Many of us may have, at one time or another said "I am so depressed"but really, what is depression?
The clinical definition is that depression is a disturbance in mood characterized by varying degrees of sadness, disappointment and loneliness. It has been described as "feeling blue" or "being in a bad mood". You get to the next level of depression when you take that feeling up ten notches, and add feelings of hopelessness, self-doubt and guilt. Severe depression is all this plus a complete desire to withdraw from daily routine and/or the outside world.
There are many schools of thought on where depression comes from. Some beliefs are scientific. Some people believe depression comes from external stimuli, like a loss of a loved one, medications or even some diseases. Others believe depression begins within, like ill thoughts, insecurities and the like.
In college I studied Freud and his theory of Psychoanalysis. Without getting too deep, Freud believed that most of what we say and do, feel and believe, comes from our unconscious. His theory of psychoanalysis deals with the three parts of the self. The id, the ego and the superego. During therapy, the psychoanalytic therapist assists the client to make unconscious thoughts conscious, and to develop strength in the ego to ensure behavior is based on reality rather than instinctual impulses arising from the id.
Have I lost you yet?
Let's try Behavioral Therapy, it's more concrete. Behavioral Therapists, like Skinner, believe only in things they can see. Words like "soul" or "consciousness" are without meaning to the Behavioral Therapist. Think of it as Scully to the Psychoanalytical Mulder. With Behavioral Therapy the client learns a form of associative learning. This occurs when a neutral stimulus is paired with a conditioned stimulus to bring about a conditioned response. Anyone ever hear of Pavlov's Dog? Ivan Pavlov is best known for his work with dogs. He rang a bell, and then fed the dogs. After enough times, Pavlov found that the dogs salivated when they heard the bell ring. While we know that ringing a bell won't make you salivate, if you are conditioned to associate the bell with food, after enough times, the bell will trigger the salivation rather than the presence of food.
So let's recap.
Illness: Depression.
Cause: Internal or external factors.
Treatment: Psychoanalysis or Behavioral Therapy (...or a host of others I didn't discuss)
So what's your take? As we know, all situations are not black and white. You have to take each person as an individual and each situation as new. While both theories of therapy have their good qualities, I haven't decided which I agree with more. I think they both have basic ideas I agree with. Neither one 100%. In my friends case, I don't really know which would better help her. I can't just tell her to feel better and think she will be better. I can't shake her and tell her to think happy thoughts and expect that she will be happy. I can't prescribe her a pill to make her pain go away.
So I guess I'm shooting for my own theory of "Love Therapy". I believe love really does conquer all. So I will continue to love her. I will pray for her health. I will listen to her with an open heart and care about her wholeheartedly. If my love were the medicine, she would be fine. I know there are many others that love her too. We all have enough love for her to fill her broken heart. I hope she can feel us. For now, we must take one day at a time and hope each day she gets stronger. I just hope she knows, whether she is happy or sad, sunny or blue, upbeat or down, I love her. I wish her only happy days. She is a great person and deserves only good things, always. I hope she finds her way back to her happy place. ...and I hope she knows I will be beside her every step of her journey, no matter where it takes us.
I love you. G-d blessed me with you in my life.
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