Overcoming depression: Self spychotherapy

Depression is a lessening of one’s ego and capability to express oneself. In the extreme, it leads to unconscious hatred of self and self-destruction or suicide. Self-destruction may be abrupt or gradual, total or partial, wilful or inadvertent. The first, and possibly the best, and even for most people, the only treatment for depression is psychotherapy, especially at the verge or onset of common depression or for mild depression. For major depressive disorder (MDD), when depression seriously debilitates, a person may not be able to initiate or respond to psychotherapy. In the case of clinically diagnosed depression, drugs are prescribed to the patient. Electroconvulsive therapy (electric shock therapy) is a special treatment tried for extreme cases of debilitating depression.

Psychotherapy is something everybody should learn the basics of. First we need to deal with causes. This may involve breaking a stressor (such as oppression, injustice, unfairness, violation, deprivation); disengaging a cause (such as religion, culture, ideology, politics, tradition); or counteracting a precipitating factor (such as envy, loss, rivalry, failure). Some of these factors may be good or indifferent but may be influencing a person badly. Recognizing the origin and causative factors involved in the depression is the first step to a correct treatment of the depression. Very often, failure to treat depression well comes from dealing with it from the outside (psychoanalysis) and not from the inside (empathy) of a person suffering depression. In such cases drugs can be given harmfully, causing more damage to the person. Within one’s family, empathy toward one another helps to ward of depression and depressive episodes in family life.

Self-knowledge is a good habit to cultivate in life. There are problems in life that nobody can solve for oneself because nobody but oneself understands them. Usually other persons regard us from their own points of view, from their own interests, from their own will, from their own desire, emotions, passions, experiences, beliefs, goals, (all good or bad) etc. Paradoxically, one’s ego cannot be rectified without one’s ego. Health care givers, psychologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, counsellors, and therapists often miss this and depression remains one of the most difficult ailments to treat. Authoritarian, totalitarian, dictatorial, and patriarchal societies always need to have checks and balances so that they “let people be”. The unfulfilled person adds to no society.

Balancing is another major concept for psychotherapy. Nature is full of balancing. A body is healthy only because of involuntary homeostatic processes that go on within the body and maintain normal body parameters such as temperature, minerals, fluids, blood pressure, nutrients, oxygenation, immunity, etc. Thus a body stays normal even with changes in the environment or continual challenges and assaults. In the case of depression, the effects of the world on one’s life need to be balanced. Negative experiences, events, encounters, relationships, conditions, and other realities need to be offset by positive ones or by opposing ones. It could be as simple as having your favourite ice cream after an awful traffic jam but usually it means a substantial and long-term effort to deal with the factors that cause depression. Coping mechanisms can be developed as we mature in life. There are many factors that tend to keep us down but there are also many factors that tend to raise us up and we should be familiar with them and know how to balance our lives.

A difficult aspect of psychotherapy is recognizing the consequences of depression on oneself. Depression could make one to embark on self-destructive behaviour such as overeating, excessive sleeping or inactivity, excessive drinking (alcohol), drug abuse (of either prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, or social drugs), sexual abuse, pessimism, unproductive escapisms (into excessive television viewing, gossiping), etc. One could also engage in destructive attitudes towards other persons (a person who does not appreciate his or her true self may not appreciate other persons). A person who is routinely mean, hateful, or antisocial may be under the influence of chronic depression.

Another major factor in psychotherapy of depression is promoting or supporting the ego. When a child is in pain, is frightened, threatened, or in need, it runs into its father’s arms and, there, the child feels secured. The child feels bigger than its bully when it is in its father’s arm and can even pull faces at the bully. Prayer is a sure way to keep in one’s top form no matter what happens in life and no matter how we perceive the world. It is where we are biggest and best.

Dr. ’Bola John is a biomedical scientist based in Nigeria and in the USA. For any comments or questions on this column, please Email bolajohnwritings@yahoo.com or call 07028338910

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