The next lesson is more subtle. Sometimes it hurts too much to do what
it takes to get better, but that’s not the only reason that depressed people
don’t do it. They can’t even imaginedoing it. Depression, at one level, is a
disorder of imagination. Depressed people are so certain of the worst that
they can’t even conceive of anything else. For Alonzo, the worst is not that
his wife will leave him, since that’s already happened. The worst is his fear
of being overwhelmed by pain if he admits that she won’t come back.
In Alonzo’s case, the expression of suffering isn’t a side effect of doing
his mourning labor; it’s an explanation of why he can’tdo it. The more he
repeats it to himself, the more certain he becomes.
The third lesson is totally pragmatic. Freud reputedly said, “If they
want to talk about sex, ask about aggression,” meaning that therapists
should push people in the direction of whatever they’re avoiding.
Learn from the master; the art of therapy lies in simple comments
that disrupt the mindless repetition of self-defeating behavior. Again, the
theory is more complicated than the practice. If people are avoiding emo-
tion as Carol did, encourage them to express it. If they are expressing it,
stop them when they start to repeat themselves, because then they’re no
longer talking to you—they’re talking to themselves.
Depression Is Guilt and Anger-Turned-Inward
Doing therapy is more like plumbing than most people realize. A lot of it
involves removing clogs and getting things flowing again. The main differ-
ence is that in therapy, everything always flows in both directions at once.
The psychoanalysts saw all human thoughts and actions as having man-
ifest content—what people say—and latent content—what it really means.
Often, latent content is the exact opposite of manifest content; thus, many emo-
tions can be expressed directly as themselves, or indirectly as their opposites.
This idea is not as weird as it sounds. We see examples of it every
day. Little boys show their affection by teasing girls; ex-smokers express
their repressed cravings by being nasty to those who still indulge. People
who say they blame themselves are also quite likely to blame others.
Depressed people talk about feeling guilty.
“I should have spent more time with my mother,” Carol says.*
The Psychology of Depression ❧ 181