Healing depression is about fixing yourself:

 

People who suffer from chronic depression frequently live with a deep sense that there is something fundamentally wrong with them. This can cause individuals who are depressed to spend their lives trying to find their core flaw so that they can fix the problem and be happy. Tragically, for many people, all the efforts at self-improvement do not make the pain go away and the depression seems to get worse. The reason that these self-help efforts so often fail is that the core problem lies in the belief that there is something wrong with them in the first place. 

 

The harder the person searches for the problem the worse the depression gets, because depression is actually caused by the belief that current problems are due to character flaws in yourself or others. One issue with traditional psychotherapy is that it encourages people to look into their past to find the internal flaw or fatal event that caused them to feel depressed. Unfortunately, this method of treating depression can reinforce the very patterns that create depression.

 

Repressing anger causes depression:

 

There is and old idea in psychology that if you do not allow yourself to express one emotion it will come out as some other unpleasant emotion. Thus it was believed that depression was a form of anger turned inward and that people who were depressed needed to learn to express anger. Unfortunately, this belief is not only wrong but harmful. 

 

While doing therapy in the 1970’s Aaron Beck, the founder of cognitive therapy, found that when he encouraged patients to ventilate about past wrongs and emotional losses their depression intensified and some even became suicidal. Likewise, studies show that expressing anger actually causes an increase in angry feelings. This suggests that it is where you choose to place your attention, not the repression of your emotions, that creates more intense negative feelings. Thus, if you want to be happier it is important to learn how to focus on positive aspects of your life.

 

Happiness is inauthentic:

 

The belief that happiness and other positive emotions are somehow inauthentic has a long history in human culture. For example, some schools of psychology believe that positive aspects of human nature such as altruism are “defense mechanisms” against underlying aggressive impulses. The problem with this idea is that there is not a shred of evidence that it is true. Rather, what we know of biology suggests attributes such as kindness are designed to help encourage cooperative behavior which is essential to our survival. This means that happiness and other positive emotions are not simply “fluff” emotions that should forgone for the sake of “real” emotions like anger and misery.

 

Your past determines your future:

 

It has become quite common to attribute current emotional problems to negative past events such as the death or divorce of your parents, illness, physical abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse. Although all of these events are extremely painful and may have some effect on your adult personality, the good news is that human beings are very resilient. Research has found that that negative childhood events have very little effect on whether you will develop depression, anxiety, have marital problems, abuse drugs or alcohol, have sexual problems, become unemployed, or have problems with anger. This is not to diminish the significance of painful childhood events, but to suggest that there is hope, regardless of what has happened, that you can learn to live a happier life. 


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