THANKFULFNESS AND DEPRESSION
Thankfulness
is great for body and soul and even for depression. According to Lauren
Aaronson:
Feeling
thankful and expressing that thanks makes you happier and heartier… Just jot
down things that make you thankful…Call it corny, but gratitude just may be the
glue that holds society together.[1]
In other
words, "Just do it!" Although helpful, thankfulness, without God and
an assurance of heaven, can be irrational and delusional. Just consider someone
who is terminally ill, has lost family and friends, and has nothing tangible to
look forward to but death! Besides being insensitive, advising her to be
thankful is asking her to be irrational. Although, thankfulness might work
emotionally, it requires the client to lobotomize her mind and to deny the most significant aspects of her
life.
In addition
to this, there remains the awkward question: “Thankful to whom?” Indeed,
thankfulness makes sound psychological sense, but Aaronson avoids this obvious
question. It’s like throwing a party without inviting the host—not a very
thankful thing at that!
Thankfulness
demands that we open our eyes and acknowledge that there must be a hidden
subject who should be acknowledged. This all comes very naturally and
comfortably for the Christian, who needs not make believe that the Host doesn’t
exist. In fact, the Host is the lynchpin who ties it all neatly together,
making sense out of thankless situations. Asaph, the Psalmist, writes, “My
flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion
forever” (Psalm 73:26, NIV). Besides, practicing Biblical thankfulness doesn’t
require the depressed to deny the painful realities of their lives.
HOPE AND DEPRESSION
Depressed
people need hope more than anything else. They have been fighting a foe that is
greater than they and have despaired of their own efforts. Psychiatrist and
Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl, had observed many struggle and finally
acquiesce to the verdict of the death camps. In Man’s Search for Meaning,
he writes:
The
prisoner who had lost his faith in the future—his future—was doomed. With his
loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself
decline and become subject to mental and physical decay.[2]
Frankl understood that the best elixir
for despair was hope. The Bible concurs: “A man's spirit sustains him in
sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?” (Proverbs 18:14, NIV). But how does one obtain hope? In The Noonday
Demon, termed by one reviewer as “the definitive book on depression,”
Andrew Solomon, himself a long-time sufferer, writes,
Since
depression is highly demotivating, it takes a certain survivor impulse to keep
going through the depression, not to cave into it. A sense of humor is the best
indicator that you will recover; it is often the best indicator that people
will love you. Sustain that and you have hope.[3]
A
sense of humor is a great gift. Some have a natural endowment of it, while
others have to learn it. However, it’s more than a skill; it’s also a vision of
life. It can laugh in the midst of one’s foibles, because they are mere
foibles when compared to eternity (Rom. 8:18-19), and not the actual
substance of life. Solomon understands the difficulty of laughter in the
context of his reality:
Of
course it can be hard to sustain a sense of humor during an experience that is
really not so funny. It is urgently necessary to do so…Whatever time is eaten
by a depression is gone forever. The minutes that are ticking by as you
experience the illness are minutes that you will not know again. No matter how
bad you feel you have to do everything you can to keep living, even if all you
can do for the moment is breathe. Wait it out and occupy the time of waiting as
fully as you can. That’s my big piece of advice to depressed people.[4]
Do better,
try harder! That’s not very hopeful—especially not for those who really need
hope. Indeed, we must often wait, but we also need to know that, when we are at
our weakest and lowest, we are actually at our highest (2 Cor. 12:9-10)! We
need the assurance that even in the midst of depression, our dear Lord is drawn
to us in our pain (Isa. 57:15; 66:1-2; Psalm 34:17-18), is suffering along with
us (Heb. 4:15; Isa. 63:7-11), and is working even our defeats and failures
towards a blessed and eternal conclusion (Rom. 8:28; Phil. 1:6; John 6:37-40)!
Psychiatrist
M. Scott Peck, author of The Road Less
Traveled, wrote 15 years later about his journey from Zen Buddhism to
Christianity. He had repeatedly observed that his Christian clients would
improve, no matter how serious their psychiatric condition. He concludes:
The
quickest way to change your attitude toward pain is to accept the fact that
everything that happens to us has been designed for our spiritual growth…We
cannot lose once we realize that everything that happens to us has been
designed to teach us holiness…We are guaranteed winners![5]
If our hope
is in ourselves rather than in our omnipotent and all-loving God, we have no
guarantees except death and decay. Solomon also appreciates the power of faith:
Frankly,
I think that the best treatment for depression is belief, which is in itself
far more essential than what you believe in. If you really truly believe that
you can relieve your depression by standing on your head and spitting nickels
for an hour every afternoon, it is likely that this incommodious activity will
do you tremendous good.[6]
Indeed, it is
a well-demonstrated fact that the placebo effect is powerful. If we believe in
something, anything, it will make a difference, at least for the short-run.
However, unless a faith accords with reality (our experiences and observations)
and is nurtured by compelling evidences, it will evaporate and so too its
positive influences.
God has not
left His suffering people destitute of compelling reasons-to-hope. He has not
been slack in providing authenticating miracles (Mat. 11:5-6; John 5:31-36;
10:37; 20:25-31; Acts 1:3; Heb. 2:4) and fulfilled prophecy (Luke 24:25-27,
44-45; John 14:28-29; 16:1-4, 32-33; Acts 17:2-4; 18:4; 28:23) to reassure our
fretful minds.
The
alternative to a trust in God is a trust in self. Such a trust is constantly
under the attack by our experiences that indict this notion. We’re not worthy
of self-trust, and consequently, it can only be maintained through a most
repressive form of denial. Nevertheless, we yearn to trust, but trust can only flourish
when finally married to its intended Husband.
AUTHENTICITY, SELF-ACCEPTANCE AND
DEPRESSION
We have to be
authentic and at peace with the true self, but this is difficult. When we lack
authenticity and transparency, we are in disharmony and conflict, obsessively
trying to maintain an image, a lie.
Karen Wright writes:
Authenticity
is correlated with many aspects of psychological well-being, including
vitality, self-esteem, and coping skills. Acting in accordance with one’s core
self—a trait called self-determination—is ranked by some experts as one of the
three basic psychological needs.[7]
Here are some
of Wright’s suggestions to achieve authenticity: read novels, meditate,
cultivate solitude, and play hard. These suggest that all we need to do is to
spend some quality time with ourselves. She also maintains that we should “be
willing to lose” and cites Thomas Moore’s rationale:
Feelings
of inauthenticity are heightened by a lack of a philosophy that allows failure
to be part of life. If you’re leading a full life, you are going to fail some
every day.[8]
Moore is correct. Failure is a part of
life, and we need to learn to graciously accept it rather than to inauthentically
deny our failures. However, finding that supportive philosophy is not easy.
Secularism can’t provide it. If you believe that you only go around once, then
failure assumes monumental importance. Thus, secularism puts an even greater
burden to succeed, in our limited time, upon our shoulders. If we fail to
achieve, well then, we’ve just failed again. No mercy for those who stumble!
Buddhism is
more compassionate and accepting of failure, but at a great price. It
diminishes the significance of failure because failure is illusion, but so too
is the rest of life! Life in this temporal world of illusion must be
transcended through enlightenment. However, “enlightenment” is a matter of
“recognizing” that everything we’ve valued (friends, family, vocation, beauty…)
is also illusion. Buddhism therefore
represents a denial of not just failure but everything. It’s like cutting off
the head because of a toothache.
Authenticity
and self-acceptance are rare commodities. Psychologist Shelley E. Taylor sums
up the clinical evidence:
People
are positively biased in their assessments of themselves and of their ability
to control what goes on around them, as well as in their views of the future.
The widespread existence of these biases and the ease with which they can be
documented suggests that they are normal.[9]
Ironically,
mainstream secular counseling panders to our insatiable appetite for even more “positive”
illusions through building self-esteem—something diametrically opposed to
authenticity and self-acceptance—a refusal
to accept the truth about ourselves.
We need to be
converted from self-esteem to self-acceptance. God sends trials to reveal to us
our true character and need and wean us from self-trust (2 Cor. 1:8-9; 4:7-18;
12:9-10; 1 Pet. 1:6-7; Eccl. 3:18). However, it is only through the promises of
His unchanging love and forgiveness that we can tolerate such a revelation. Accordingly,
Elyse M. Fitzpatrick, director of Women
Helping Women Ministries, writes,
The
counter-intuitive truth that the depressed person needs to hear isn’t “you’re
really a wonderful person,” but rather, “you’re more sinful and flawed than you
ever dared believe”…Bathing our soul in
the Gospel message will powerfully transform…It’s true that I’m more sinful and
flawed than I ever dared believe, and that truth frees me from the delusion
that I’ll ever be able to approve of myself; but I’m also more loved and
welcomed than I ever dared hope, and that truth comforts and encourages me when
my heart condemns me and my darling desires are all withheld. It assures me
that although I struggle with accepting myself, the Holy King has declared me
righteous.[10]
It’s only
through God’s acceptance that we can begin to accept the painful truth about
ourselves and to live authentically. Ironically, there is great freedom in
this. If we can learn to rejoice in the pit, then enjoying the mountaintop
isn’t problematic. If we can accept the unflattering portrait of ourselves, we
can cease the obsessive and strenuous occupation of trying to prove ourselves.
If we can accept ourselves, then the opinions of others loose their bite.
Criticism will no longer constitute a treat because it can tell us no new dirt
about ourselves.
Self-acceptance
is a pre-condition for authenticity. Modernity’s answer is self-esteem, but it
turns out to be the antithesis—the refusal
to accept ourselves as we truly are.
EUDAIMONIA AND DEPRESSION
Mental
health professionals recognize that living in accordance with our moral
convictions is an important factor for mental health. Accordingly, Karen Wright
wrote,
Eudaimonia
refers to a state of well-being and full functioning that derives from a sense
of living in accordance with one’s deeply held values.[11]
This is so
obvious. Even atheists perceive this and are intent upon living moral lives.
However, they ascribe their moral programming to evolution. For example,
Richard Dawkins writes:
Natural
selection, in ancestral times when we lived in small stable bands like baboons,
programmed into our brains altruistic urges, alongside sexual urges, hunger
urges, xenophobic urges and so on.[12]
Consequently,
altruism has nothing to do with truth or a right and wrong, but chance processes.
Why then follow these altruistic urges? Appealing to our genetic programming
isn’t adequate. Should we be “xenophobic” (fearful of strangers) merely because
we had been “programmed” with this reaction? Of course not! Why then be
altruistic? For the atheist, the only possible answer is pragmatic. Altruistic
behavior works; it benefits the doer with
good feelings. It’s solely a matter of a cost/benefit analysis.
Atheist,
humanist, and author of the Humanist
Manifesto II, Paul Kurtz affirms that pragmatism is the “only” possible
justification for morality:
How
are these principles [of equality, freedom, etc.] to be justified? They are not
derived from a divine or natural law nor do they have a special metaphysical
[beyond the material world] status. They are rules offered to govern how we
shall behave. They can be justified only by reference to their results.[13]
However,
pragmatism isn’t adequate. Sometimes it isn’t
pragmatic to be moral. Hiding Jews from the Nazis wouldn’t pass the
cost/benefit analysis. The price of a bullet in the head of the entire family is
just too high! Therefore, non-theists cannot live in harmony with both their
rationale and the law of God written upon their conscience (Rom. 2:14-15).
Either they hide Jews and violate their pragmatic rationale or they don’t hide
Jews and violate their conscience. Heart and the secular mind (pragmatism) are
divided and in conflict. In either case, their mental well-being will suffer,
because they are unable to live “in accordance with one’s deeply held values.”
More
fundamentally, the one who denies God and therefore denies the moral absolutes
of the conscience will fail to derive the benefits of eudaimonia. There is
little satisfaction in living in accordance with the dictates of the conscience
if we understand it to be no more than a tyrannical electro-chemical reaction,
which demands us to make sacrifices that go against our desires and then
punishes us with guilt feelings. In other words, just take a conscience-numbing
drug!
In contrast,
for the Christian, the conscience and the Word (heart and mind together)
represent the will of God, the source of all truth, joy, peace and love. We
have every reason to regard it as a tremendous privilege to follow Him.
Understandably, living according to His truth is a delight (Psalm 1:1-3; John 4:34).
MEANING,
PURPOSE AND DEPRESSION
We are
psychologically constituted to seek to understand our place in the world and to
comprehend our purpose and meaning within it. The Jewish philosopher and
theologian, Abraham Heschel, asserted this very thing:
It’s
not enough for me to be able to say ‘I am’; I want to know who I am and in relation to whom I live. It is not enough for me to
ask questions; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to
encompass everything I face: What am I here for?[14]
However, not
any understanding will do the trick. We have to understand that we’re more than
just an accident, a mere product of nature and nurture. The maverick
psychologist, James Hillman, concurs:
We
dull our lives by the way we conceive then…By accepting the idea that I am the
effect of…hereditary and social forces, I reduce myself to a result. The more
my life is accounted for by what already occurred in my chromosomes, by what my
parents did or didn’t do, and by my early years now long past, the more my
biography is the story of a victim. I am living a plot written by my genetic
code, ancestral heredity, traumatic occasions, parental unconsciousness,
societal accidents.[15]
If we fail to
see ourselves as part of a higher
narrative, there is a great danger of falling into depression. When we
recognize that our lives have meaning, we can endure the trials and
frustrations. Even the atheist and Christian-despiser Frederick Nietzsche wrote
that “He who has a ‘why’ to live for can bear almost any ‘how!’”
But from
where does this “why” or rationale come? Not from secular materialism, which denies
all spiritual realities! In this regard, Psychologist Arthur Deikman writes:
Human
beings need meaning. Without it they suffer…Western Psychotherapy is hard put
to meet human beings’ need for meaning, for it attempts to understand clinical
phenomena in a framework based on scientific materialism in which meaning is
arbitrary and purpose nonexistent.[16]
This leaves
us with one possibility—a self-created existential meaning. The brilliant
atheist mathematician, Bertrand Russell was confident he could do this very
thing. In Why I am Not a Christian,
he wrote of cherishing “the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day;
disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of fate [of the rest of mankind], to
worship at the shrines that his own hands have built; undismayed by the empire
of chance.”[17]
However, a
self-constructed meaning is not sufficient. To suggest that one can merely dream
up his own purpose is like telling him that instead of getting married he can
merely dream up his own wife and kids for company. Instead, we need to know that we are somehow connected to
Someone greater. Russell’s self-created meaning failed to hold back the “coward
terrors.” Later he wrote, “I wrote with passion and force because I really
thought I had a gospel. Now I am cynical about the gospel because it won’t
stand the test of life.”[18]
Instead, we
were made to participate in a glorious drama (Jer. 29:11), and only acting on
this exalted stage can ennoble and truly fortify us against depression (2 Cor. 5:20-21).
GUILT,
SHAME AND DEPRESSION
Depression
often results from the unresolved crippling feelings of guilt, shame and
inadequacy. John Bradshaw warns about the depressing effect of these feelings, especially
shame, which he defines as,
The
internalized feeling of being flawed and defective as a human being…shame,
which should be a healthy signal of limits, becomes an overwhelming state of
being, an identity if you will. Once toxically shamed, a person loses contact
with his authentic self. What follows is a chronic mourning for the lost self.[19]
Bradshaw then
explains how shame, the “master emotion,” begins to tragically numb the rest of
the emotions through denial, repression, and dissociation. Where did this
life-controlling shame come from? According to Bradshaw, it is a product of not
being loved unconditionally. If this is the problem, then the answer is matter
of providing unconditional love. One way this is achieved, according to
Bradshaw, is through loving affirmations:
Repeated
positive messages are emotional nutrients…Here are the loving words you can say
to your inner infant:
“Welcome
to the world, I’ve been waiting for you. I’m glad you are here. I’ve prepared a
special place for you to live. I like you just the way you are. I will not
leave you, no matter what...” [20]
There are
several problems with Bradshaw’s approach:
- Bradshaw unjustifiably assumes that toxic shame is the result of a lack of love. Indeed, love cover over our sensitivity to guilt, but this doesn’t mean that an increased sensitivity is pathological. Instead, it might have a beneficial effect. Likewise, it is better to live with our uncomfortable inhibitions, than to go “wilding” with friends, in whose company these inhibitions are decreased. Guilt and shame demand self-examination. If we have transgressed, the appropriate action is confession and repentance (1 John 1:8-9) and not soothing self-talk! If sin is the problem, then Bradshaw’s suggestion is merely a professional form of denial.
- It’s not believable. If positive affirmations are going to work, they must be believed, but they should only be believed if they are in harmony with reality! However, it’s hard to take seriously Bradshaw’s proposed affirmations: “I’ve prepared a special place for you to live. I like you just the way you are...”
- Believing something silly can only provide minimal and temporary relief.
On the other
hand, if Bradshaw’s affirmations can work to alleviate depression, how much
more God’s affirmations! If it helps me to assure myself that “I will not leave
you,” how much more God’s assurance that He
will never leave me (Rom 8:38-39; Heb. 13:5)! If I am reassured by, “I like you
just the way you are,” I will find God’s promise, that He loves me with a love
that surpasses anything I can understand, even more reassuring (Eph 3:17-20)! I
may be able to forgive myself, but God’s forgiveness (Heb. 8:12) will penetrate
so much more intimately and persuasively and will eventually secure self-forgiveness.
Bradshaw’s
self-affirmations are to God’s affirmations as masturbation is to true
relationship--a substitute for the real thing. Even worse, self-affirmations
must be believed if they are to have any impact. However, Bradshaw promotes
these affirmations apart from any consideration of their truth-content. The
mind and reality are thus compromised for the sake of fleeting emotional
relief. If we stoop to unreality, we will pay a hefty price further down the
road.
In contrast
to this, the Bible doesn’t admonish us to believe that Christ died for our sins
simply because we’ll derive a sense of relief, but primarily because it is true,
as many reliable witnesses have attested. God’s solution never requires us to
compromise our intellectual integrity or reality.
MORAL
LIVING, BLESSING AND DEPRESSION
Lastly, moral
living translates into blessing (John 13:17) for all, including those who are
depressed. In her introduction to Against
Therapy, Dorothy Rowe writes,
David
Small, Professor of Clinical Psychology at Nottingham
University, head of Clinical
Psychological services at Nottingham
University, and once a
practicing psychotherapist, has proposed an alternative to therapy in his book
Taking Care. He wrote, ‘Psychological distress occurs for reasons which make it
incurable by therapy but which are certainly not beyond the powers of human
beings to influence. We suffer pain because we do damage to each other,
and we shall continue to suffer pain as long as we continue to do damage. The
way to alleviate and mitigate distresses is for us to take care of the world
and the other people in it, not to treat
them.[21]
The
relationship between obedience and blessing is no more clearly observed than in
the context of marriage, where we find that we best meet our own needs when we
best address the needs of our spouse (Eph. 5:28; 1 Peter 3:7).
In this
regard, it is interesting to see how the leading names in marriage counseling
are counseling couples according to the very principles found in Scripture!
Whereas psychotherapists had been jumping on the communication-techniques
bandwagon as the means to address marital conflict, now they are returning to
the concepts of love and respect. John M. Gottman, professor of psychology and cofounder
of The Gottman Institute writes,
The
typical conflict-resolution advice won’t help. Instead, you need to understand
the bottom-line difference that is causing the conflict between you—and learn
how to live with it by honoring and respecting each other.[22]
Gottman
claims that a year after the average couple graduates from a standard course of
conflict resolution training, only 18% retain any benefit from it (10). This
represents far smaller percentage than those marriages which spontaneously
improve. Marriage guru, Harville Hendrix, similarly writes,
Feel
more loving toward each other simply by engaging in more loving behaviors…The
husbands and wives are to grant each other a certain number of these caring
behaviors a day, no matter how they feel about each other.[23]
The type of
“other-centeredness” that Gottman and Hendrix advocate can certainly jump-start
a languishing relationship. However, in the long run, more is needed. Loving
you mate can be hard work! Besides, if we’re just giving in order to get, the getting will eventually dry up
along with the giving. In fact, there may be long periods when we’re not going
to see the payoff! This is why it requires quite an effort, driven by deeply
held convictions, to keep it going. Our focus must rest upon our spouse’s
needs. But how do we do this when our own needs go unmet?
Larry Crabb
explains that this “humanistic foundation” sets us up for failure by placing
the emphasis upon meeting our own needs.[24]
Instead, if we are going to continue to act lovingly towards our mate, we need
a true other-centeredness based upon the conviction that it’s right to do so even if we aren’t getting
what we want from the relationship. And we will not be able to continue with
this type of sacrifice unless we are assured that God is taking care of us,
providing seed to the sower (2 Cor. 8:10).
If giving and
going to the marriage counselor is only about getting results, then it isn’t
truly giving and it probably won’t bare results over the long-haul. Instead,
our mate will perceive our behavior as manipulation—giving to get what we
want—a thinly concealed business transaction: “I’m giving to you so that I’ll
receive my payments.”
What happens
to the guy who brings his wife flowers whenever he wants sex? Eventually, she
sees through his manipulation and resents the flowers, which are supposed to be
signs of true romance and intimacy, but are no more than payment for services
rendered by a body.
What can lift
the couple out of self-serving “altruism?” The conviction that their mission is
far loftier than the immediate fulfillment of their needs—that they are
ambassadors (2 Cor. 2:15; 5:20) of the God of all truth, wisdom, healing, and
love and that they belong to Him (1 Cor. 6:19-20)! Consequently, they are no
longer the helpless depressive but a servant of Glory (Gal. 2:20).
There are
many other psychological needs (forgiveness, humility, contentment,
accomplishment, validation, joy, beauty...) we can survey in order to
demonstrate how our Lord and His wisdom best address those needs. In contrast,
there are numerous counterfeits. Curiously, they provide some relief in the
short-run, but as with all drugs, there are hidden costs.
The wisdom of
the Bible is uncanny. How is it that a collection of ancient books continues to
nourish us in the very ways we need? If the Bible didn’t do this for us, it
would become highly questionable that it came from a superior intelligence.
However, in many ways, it bears the fingerprints of a God who loves us so much
that He wants to share His mind with us.
[1] Lauren
Aaronson, “Make a Gratitude Adjustment,” Psychology
Today, March/April 2006.
[2] Os
Guinness, The Journey: Our Quest for
Faith and Meaning (Colorado Springs,
NavPress, 2001), 38.
[3] Andrew
Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of
Depression (New York,
Scribner, 2001), 430.
[4] Ibid.,
430.
[5] M. Scott
Peck, Further Along the Road Less
Traveled (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1993), 24.
[6] Solomon,
137.
[7] Karen
Wright, “Dare to be Yourself,” Psychology
Today, May/June 2008, 72
[8] Ibid.,
75.
[9] Shelley
E. Taylor, Positive Illusions: Creative
Self-Deception and the Healthy Mind (New York, Basic Books, Inc., 1989),
46.
[10] Elyse M Fitzpatrick, “The Gospel Cure,” Tabletalk, March 2008, 15-16)
[11] Wright, 76.
[12] Richard
Dawkins, The God Delusion (New York,
Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006), 221.
[13] David
A. Noebel, Understanding the Times,
abridged edition (Colorado Springs, Association of Christian Schools
International, 1995), 237.
[14]
Guinness, 39
[15] James
Hillman, The Soul’s Code (New York,
Random House, 1996), 5-6.
[16] Arthur
J. Deikman, The Observing Self: Mysticism
and Psychotherapy (Boston, Beacon Press, 1982), 4-5.
[17]
Guinness, 105.
[18] Ibid.,
106.
[19] John
Bradshaw, Homecoming: Reclaiming and
Championing Your Inner Child (New York, Bantam House, 1990), 67.
[20] Ibid.,
93.
[21] Jeffrey
Moussaieff Masson, Against Therapy
(Monroe, Maine, Common Courage Press, 1994), 21-22.
[22] John M.
Gottman, The Seven Principles for Making
Marriage Work (New York, Three Rivers Press, 1999), 24.
[23]
Harville Hendrix, Getting the Love You
Want: A Guide for Couples (New York, HarperPerennial, 1990), 119.
[24] Larry
Crabb, The Marriage Builder (Grand
rapids, Zondervan, 1992), 12.
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