One Step Forward? Or Five Steps Back?
Does Depression have an “Upside” ?
The alternative, of course, is that depression has a secret purpose and our medical interventions are making a bad situation even worse. Like a fever that helps the immune system fight off infection — increased body temperature sends white blood cells into overdrive — depression might be an unpleasant yet adaptive response to affliction. Maybe Darwin was right. We suffer — we suffer terribly — but we don’t suffer in vain.
The above is a quote taken from a New York Times article written by Jonah Lehrer. In it, he considers the “worth” of extended depressive episodes – how they may be a form of evolutionary advancement that we are stifling through the use of anti-depressants and therapy.
Naturally, this article has been the subject of much debate throughout the psychiatric and mental health community. Is what Lehrer theorizes true? Is depression something that can be seen as a necessary evil on the road to evolution? In his article, Lehrer points to many successful individuals who have suffered major depression – in particular drawing the popular connection between creativity and depression.
While Andreasen acknowledges the burden of mental illness — she quotes Robert Lowell on depression not being a “gift of the Muse” and describes his reliance on lithium to escape the pain — she argues that many forms of creativity benefit from the relentless focus it makes possible.
The ‘relentless focus’ spoken of here is arguable. More often than not, one of the most damaging symptoms of major depression is a complete lack of motivation and loss of focus. You can have all the good intentions in the world – I wake up sometimes thinking that deep inside me somewhere is a part of me that knows I could achieve something amazing if I set my mind to it – but the lack of motivation coupled with anxiety stifles that focus and keeps me from even attempting what I dream of doing.
Now this could just be me – I know of others with depression who are able to compartmentalise (no matter how agonising) and move on with their lives fighting against the feeling of inertia. But to say that this endless struggle against the will of your own brain is a ‘worthwhile’ aspect, especially in regards to creativity, is strange and over simplified.
In Ronald Pies article ‘The Myth of Depresion’s Upside’ on PyschCentral, he quotes psychiatrist Richard Berlin on this supposed correlation between creativity and depression:
“The idea that depression might enhance creativity is a myth, often based on the life stories and statements of deceased artists and writers… Contemporary poets who are alive and can tell us about their experience with depression are consistent in reporting that it was only after effective psychiatric treatment that they were able to create at their highest levels.”
This is not to say that suffering of any kind cannot provide both the means to be compassionate and work as a source of inspiration. Oftentimes we are moved to become more empathetic towards our fellow man if we have had a burden of any kind to deal with.
But even this advantage is hopelessly outweighed by the negative aspects of long-term major depression. Withdrawal, suicidal thoughts, self harm, persistent melancholy, addiction, relationship and career conflicts – these are not to be taken lightly, and are most definitely not the Romanticisms of a creative mind.
In his article ‘Depression is a Thief, Even When You Learn From It’, Pies states:
The Talmud teaches us that we should learn from all persons, even a thief. For example, thieves work hard at night! I see severe major depression as a kind of thief. Now, being robbed (of happiness, pleasure, ease of mind and body, etc.) may indeed be instructive–one learns courage, resilience, caution, and the need to take care of oneself. But a thief is still a thief–and few of us would recommend a “good burglary” to our friends or family, as a means of instruction in life’s lessons!
It hearkens back to the idea that we are still largely unaware of Depression and Mental Illness in society at large. How could something that is so pervasive still be so misunderstood? How can it swing so violently in the public sphere from ‘self-indulgent egotism’ to ‘evolutionary advancement’? When did this happen?
Sources:
Depression’s Upside, Jonah Lehrer, The New York Times, February 25th 2010
The Myth of Depression’s Upside, Ronald Pies MD, PsychCentral.com, March 1st 2010
That article (when I first read it) made me want to throw my computer. Though it still does. Okay, so some people might actually benefit. Though benefit is a bad word. The person suffering actually doesn’t benefit. The work they do causes other people to benefit. Reading the article, I had Poe on the brain. He strikes me as a person who would have suffered from some form of depression. His writing probably benefited from his suffering, but does that mean it was necessary? No. I don’t think so. I think he would have been happier without depression, even if that meant he wouldn’t have written the works he did.
You can’t just find a handful of people that did something great while depressed and suddenly decide that mental illness is beneficial to the person suffering through it.
For me its like saying this… Taking into consideration that some children with autism have above average skills in drawing, that they actually benefit from having autism. I’m sure if someone posted an article about that, they’d be called horrible for saying a such a thing.
Great blog, Meg, and good response, Ashley.
The author of the article, Jonah Lehrer, talked himself around in a big circle. The middle part was the most useful – when he cited responses to the publication of Andrews and Thomson’s research (the so-called analytic-rumination hypothesis), most of which took the scientists to task because their study did not account for the many variants of depression. In his article Mr Lehrer included the following response to the criticism of the study by Andrews and Thomson:
“[They acknowledge that] depression is a vast continuum, a catch-all term for a spectrum of symptoms. While the analytic-rumination hypothesis might explain those patients reacting to an “acute stressor,” it can’t account for those whose suffering has no discernible cause or whose sadness refuses to lift for years at a time.”
Mr Lehrer appeared to have based most of his article on the Andrews/Thomson study, and wrote it as if the study was a comment on depression in all its forms, rather than the narrow focus it actually was. He seems to have succumbed to the trap most people fall into: that of thinking sadness and depression are interchangeable terms. His article does nothing to further understanding of clinical depression.
Hello! I very much appreciate your citation of my articles on this controversial issue. You may also find my article on “The Anatomy of Sorrow” of interest:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2442112/
Meanwhile, I hope you’ll check out the Psychiatric Times website for an upcoming piece
by Prof. Jerry Coyne, the evolutionary biologist who has challenged the Thomson-Andrews thesis.
Best regards,
Ronald Pies MD
You post awsome articles. Bookmarked !