My patient, let’s call him Jack, is a 47-year-old lawyer working successfully in a large law firm. At some point, he stopped coping with constant stress and found himself in severe depression.
He lost his appetite, lost weight, suffered from insomnia, completely lost interest in sports and gambling, and had difficulty communicating with his wife and children. He was increasingly visited by thoughts: “Isn’t it time to end all this?” And only after the beginning of psychotherapy and treatment with antidepressants did he feel better. After a month and a half, Jack returned most of his lost desires, and after another two months, according to him, he “felt that he had finally returned to himself.”
Those who are immersed in depression feel as if their soul has been stolen. and only having recovered, they can return to themselves
I thought of Jack as I read fashion journalist Jonah Lehrer* about the “bright side” of depression: it is supposed to be seen as a condition that can be productive and teach us a lot. Indeed, both writers and my colleagues are sometimes inclined to refer to depression as a “cleansing force” or “an attempt to adapt to new circumstances.” However, my experience tells me something very different. The depressed people I have counseled over the past 30 years have almost never viewed their condition as some kind of “spiritual bonus.” On the contrary, they felt as if their souls had been stolen and only after the depression was cured did the soul return to them.
We often hear that antidepressants are a false choice. Jonah Lehrer, for example, argues that people who get out of depression with their help are unable to cope with life’s problems on their own in the future. But after all, medicines, in some cases vital, by no means cancel a full-fledged psychotherapy. And there is no convincing evidence that antidepressants further suppress the ability to cope with problems on their own.
However, in preventing the recurrence of depression, successful psychotherapy can have a greater positive effect than antidepressants alone, and in the treatment of mild forms of depression, it is psychotherapy that is the first choice. Of course, we should not deny that the part of our “I” that causes depression is a reflection of the complex, amazing human nature.
But it is extremely dangerous to poeticize depression, since in this case there is a risk of staying in this state for a long time, neglecting help and believing that this in itself will lead to new life guidelines. We cannot be under the illusion that depression can help us solve a complex set of problems. This, in my opinion, is an extremely destructive myth – albeit one created with the best of intentions.
* Jonah Lehrer is a journalist, blogger, collaborator with The New York Times, The Washington Post, Nature and Wired, author of non-fiction books, including the bestseller How We Make Decisions (Corpus, 2010).