months before. Sometimes we’d try to stump each other with
trivia questions.Devious doctors can only take it so far. The emotional connection that
makes behavioral therapy work is with loved ones. Recruit all you can.
Think about the things depressed people used to do for fun, then don’t give
them any peace until they start doing them again. Don’t just send them; go
along.
“Yo,Dad,” Randy’s son says over the phone. “ I hear some of the
big guys are biting out at the lake. I’m going tomorrow. You in?”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Randy says. “I’d have to oil my reel and
put on new line, then I’d have to get all my tackle ready and—”
“Good try, Dad, But I’m on my way over to help you with
that right now.”Step 3: Figuring Out Which Kind of Depression You’re
Dealing With
Discrimination is critical, because depression is really two or three disor-
ders that share a few symptoms but are different enough in their basic
nature to warrant almost opposite approaches to treatment.
So we’re back again to the old What is depression?question
There are number of theories, of course, each of which describes
one aspect of the great gray beast. But as we already know, if you pay too
much attention to one part of the elephant, you may miss others.
Depression Is Loss
Long before there were psychoanalysts, there was a recognized connection
between depression and loss. People who lose something they cherish are
sad. They cry, they don’t eat, they don’t sleep, and they don’t want to do
much of anything. It seems logical that the converse would also be true—
that people who are sad have lost something. Not necessarily. The issue is
important because what helps people recover from loss makes other kinds
of depression worse.
Grieving a loss is hard work. You have to load up all the memories
and haul them from one part of your brain to the other, from isto was,
The Psychology of Depression ❧ 175