How People Recover From Depression: A New Perspective

Are you feeling depressed? Unable to escape the loop of negative thoughts? Hereโ€™s new research on not just recovering from depression, but thriving after emotional difficulties.
Written by: Todd B. Kashdan

The World Health Organization considers depression to be a monumental problem, specifically the leading cause of disability worldwide. Thatโ€™s ahead of widely publicized contenders, such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Reading the news today, you might conclude that depression leads inevitably to suicides, school shootings, or altercations with the police.

Sometimes, Depression Can Make You Feel Like

Can this darkest of human frailties ever point the way to something better?

Our personal and professional experiences say yes.

One of us (Rottenberg, running The Mood and Emotion Lab) saw this 25 years ago from the barrel of a depression. After a chronic struggle, he was ready to throw in the towel. He dropped out of graduate school and, after trying every medication advertised on television, was hospitalized. It seemed like his life was over. Extinguished. Done for.

After this shattering experience, somehow, someway, he pulled it together. He got married. Had a child. Became a psychologist. Focused on the study of depression. Got tenure. Somehow, someway, a grotesque experience led to an unexpected second act: After depression, little things didnโ€™t rattle him, and life had a purpose, maybe even more than before.

One of us (Kashdan, running The Well-Being Lab) saw this as a new clinical science trainee, helping clients grapple with crippling social fear. Clients saw themselves as a bundle of massive, irreconcilable flaws. They feared being seen, feared meeting people, feared disclosure, even feared standing with others in an elevator. They were sure that social exposure meant scrutiny, then rejection. Tiny actions in treatment slowly dissolved these beliefs.

Also read What Is Cognitive Dissonance? Common Causes and How To Resolve It

Week one, say hello to someone. Week two, ask someone about their midnight guilty pleasure. Week three, go out with people and play volleyball. But the weirdest thing happened months after treatment ended. Baby steps somehow became giant leaps. Patients now spoke of positive self-regard, intimacy and laughter, and ambitious accomplishments. The goal of therapy was to help clients lose their crippling fear. Something else happened. They were thriving. How?

Struck by these observations, we joined forces to find out what is known about human rebirth after the calamity of depression. What explains it? How often does it happen?

In an article just published in Perspectives on Psychological Science with our students, we reached a shocking conclusion: Experts have virtually nothing to say about this topic.

Instead, consensus opinion in psychology, psychiatry, and public health go something like this:

โ€œDepression is a chronic and recurrent condition, with each experienced depressive episode increasing the risk of future episodes,โ€ as Dr. David Solomon and colleagues from the National Institute of Mental Health put in 2000.

Or, as Saba Moussavi and colleagues from the World Health Organization wrote in the Lancet, โ€œWithout treatment, depression has the tendency to assume a chronic course, be recurrent, and over time to be associated with increasing disability.โ€

We summed up the malaise of world-leading thinkers: If there is one piece of bankable expert consensus, it is that depression is a recurrent and chronic condition that is difficult to contain, even when treated.

Also read 6 Concrete Ways To Improve Your Emotional Health

In other words, the scientific literature clearly states that if youโ€™ve had depression once, it will probably strike you down again and lay waste to your good years (ironically, disseminating this idea might exacerbate peopleโ€™s depression). Youโ€™ll be impaired at work, your relationships will suffer, and your happiness and sense of meaning in life will be obstructed.

Severe Depression Can Make Us Physically Older

Sadly, depression can be a lifelong problem.

But as we dug more deeply into the corpus of epidemiological studies, we also saw signs of better outcomes. For example, in rare longitudinal studies that modeled the whole population, 40 to 60 percent of people who had depression once never experienced a recurrence, even after being questioned years and even decades later. Thriving, or well-being, was not measured directly in these studies, but it stands to reason that many of these people who had depression once, and shook it over the long term, were living better than the average human being without depression, experiencing frequent positive emotions, good relationships, autonomy in thought and action, and meaningful goals.

Recently, we analyzed data from a representative sample of 3,487 adults from the Midlife in the United States Study (MIDUS) to estimate how common thriving after depression really is. To count as thriving after depression, a person not only had to be free of the major symptoms of depression, he/she also had to report well-being superior to 75 percent of non-depressed adults from the United States. We set a very high bar for thriving. Remarkably, almost 10 percent of the people who were clinically depressed when they entered the MIDUS study were thriving 10 years later.

Our new vantage point on depression allows us to see that depression is sometimes far from being an inevitable death sentence. It can be a waystation. In a surprisingly large number of cases, people move from the ashes of despair to flourishing.

depression coping statements

Who becomes reborn after depression?

We donโ€™t yet know the full who, how, or why. In the coming years, we expect to unearth many routes to rebirth. For some, full healing may simply take the passage of time. Others may achieve it following formal treatment. Others may discover a new purpose in life or a daily routine that works for them. Some people may achieve this state after the first time they were depressed; others may get there only after several bouts of depression. The most exciting thing about illuminating these pathways is that some pathways undoubtedly will provide new points of leverage for containing the depression epidemic.

It seems surreal that itโ€™s 2018, and only now do we have an estimate of how often people thrive after depression. This neglect of optimal outcomes is shocking because nobody seeks the mere absence of distress and disorder. The hope after depression is for a new era when one can love and be loved, be engaged in the present moment, extract joy and meaning, and do something that mattersโ€”something that makes the pain and setbacks of daily life worthwhile. Isnโ€™t the whole point of intervention to help people unlock their potential despite a mental disorder?

We discovered that psychology and psychiatry have a blind spot for good outcomes. This blind spot is larger than depression. It covers substance use problems. It covers anxiety and eating disorders. It covers most major mental health problems. In all these cases, we lack even the most basic estimates of how many people go on to fully recover and flourish in their lives.

Also read 5 Ways Gratitude Improves Our Mental Health

We believe that until these blind spots are filled in, therapists and physicians should tread more lightly. People experiencing problems in treatment settings are routinely told that their condition has a grim prognosis. Until we know how common flourishing is, such pronouncements are misinformed, even hurtful. They do not serve patients well.

We need to see human beings as they are, which often differs from our intuition, expert opinions, and the inner monologue that plagues us when we experience the depths of depression or any emotional disturbance. Our new view about the possibilities after depression is not only a closer fit to existing scientific evidence, it also happens to be more hopeful.


Originally appeared on: Psychology Today
Republished with permission
How People Recover From Depression pin

— Share —

,

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Up Next

5-4-3-2-1 Coping Technique for Anxiety: A Great Method to Calm Your Anxiety

If you are looking for a simple but effective coping technique for anxiety, look no further: the 54321 anxiety technique is your answer!

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

This technique is one of the easiest relaxation methods you can learn. So, whether youโ€™re feeling overwhelmed or facing a stressful situation it will help you stay grounded in the present moment by usin

Up Next

Music Therapy: How To Use Music For Emotional Healing?

Do you ever notice how your favorite song instantly lifts your spirits when it comes on? Or how it can calm your mind at the end of a stressful day? Well, thatโ€™s the power of music. It is not just some words and sounds, itโ€™s a powerful tool that can also heal us. So, let us explore ways in which we can use music for emotional healing.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Up Next

Is Your Depression Causing Anger? 4 Crucial Reasons to Address It

Do you find yourself caught in an emotional tug-of-war? Is your depression causing anger? If every little frustration feels like it could explode into rage and snapping at loved ones for no reason has become a common habit, learn the ways to help yourself with depression and anger.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

As an effect of depression, anger is quite common because

Up Next

Depression Without Suicidal Thoughts: 8 Signs That You Have Been Ignoring

Have you ever felt like you are going through the motions of daily life but not really feeling present or engaged? Many people experience depression without the extreme of suicidal thoughts, and itโ€™s often overlooked or misunderstood.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Most of the time depression is associated with visible signs of sadness. However, sometimes it does app

Up Next

10 Songs About Depression: Soulful Songs That You Will Relate To

Depression is the dark shadow that engrosses the normal life function of individuals making them numb or extremely agitated. In this situation, personally, I prefer to listen to music that can beat any stress with a calm vibe. And not only me, music therapy is one of the best ways to deal with depression and sadness.ย 

Up Next

7 Shocking Facts About Mental Health That Will Surprise You

Do you ever feel like you have a pretty good handle on mental health, only to come across a fact that completely challenges your understanding? Have you ever wondered about the lesser known facts about mental health?

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Mental health is a topic that is becoming more openly discussed, which is fantastic for mental health aware

Up Next

โ€œWhy Do Men Never Express Emotionsโ€? A Closer Look At Menโ€™s Mental Health

Menโ€™s mental health concerns are hardly brought out in the open. How often do you see men expressing their mental health struggles? Comparatively, men seek much less mental health treatment than women do.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

If you look inside your family, you wonโ€™t spot a single maleย memberย who has ever expressed their emotions. Instea