My last blog proposed that we can better understand ourselves and others if we give as much attention to the emotional/relational world as we usually do to behavior and thought. This idea requires work, since emotions and relationships are usually hidden from others and even from ourselves. Here is one application of this approach.
Worried about the high rates of depression and suicide, the Army is planning therapy for its 1.1 million soldiers (NYT, Aug. 17, p. A1). For many years I have been teaching college students in a way that may fit the Army's problem exactly. I propose two basic causes of depression: Hidden emotions, and no secure bond with another person. These ideas lead to a practical self/other therapy that might be effective for the Army (and for anyone else, for that matter).
Temporary Lifting of Severe Depression
Many years ago in England, I observed initial interviews of elderly male patients admitted to a mental hospital. They were all deeply depressed, outcasts without a secure bond. However, to my surprise, there were moments in some of the interviews that were like miracles.
The psychiatrists asked some of the patients about their activity during WWII. For about half of these, as they begin to describe their experiences, no matter what they were, their behavior underwent a dramatic change.
They sat up, raised their voice to a normal level and looked directly at the psychiatrist. The speed of talk picked up and became coherent. Their facial expressions became lively. Each of them seemed like a different, younger, person.
The memory of the patients' earlier acceptance as valued members of their country under attack re-lived the feeling of a secure bond and generated pride. The pride, in turn, counteracted the shame part of their depression. Telling the psychiatrist about belonging to a community had been enough to remove the shame of being outcasts. Each question about WWII was an accidental invention of Positive Psychology.
Many persons have had the experience of community as adults, but have forgotten. These persons, like the patients described above, need be asked the right questions, or ask themselves. It would appear that the deficit in these cases is not in the person, but in the social environment. In the rapid pace of modern societies, it is difficult to find a true confidant that is available when needed.
Repression of Emotions and Gender
Boys, more than girls, learn early that vulnerable feelings (love, grief, fear and shame) are seen as signs of weakness. Most boys learn to hide their vulnerable feelings in emotionless talk, withdrawal, or silence. In situations where this option seems unavailable, one may cover vulnerable feelings behind a display of hostility.
Vulnerable feelings are first hidden from others, and after many repetitions, even from self. In this latter stage, behavior becomes compulsive. When men face what they construe to be threatening situations, they may be compelled to SILENCE, especially about their emotions.
Even without threat, men seem to be more likely to SILENCE than women. With their partners, most men don't talk freely about feelings of resentment, humiliation, embarrassment, rejection, loss and anxiety, or for that matter, joy, genuine pride and love. They seem to be backed up on a wide variety of intense feelings.
Numbing out fear, particularly, is a catastrophe. Fear is an innate signal of danger that has survival value. When we see a car heading toward us on a collision course, genetic endowment has given us an immediate, automatic fear response: WAKE UP, YOUR LIFE IS IN DANGER! Much faster than thought, this reaction increases our chance of survival; repressing it is dangerous to self and others. Yet most men equate fear with cowardice. Numbing out fear and other emotions may be the main source of the high rates of depression in the mostly male U. S. Army.
In order to avoid pain inflicted by others, we learn to repress our emotions. After thousands of curtailments, repression becomes habitual and out of consciousness.
As we become more backed up with avoided emotions, we have the sense that experiencing them would be unbearably painful. In this way, avoidance leads to avoidance and finally silence in a self-perpetuating feedback loop.
How can we escape this loop? I have been using exercises to deal with my own bouts of depression and those of my students: Best Moments, Gratitude Letters, and two exercises for finding and connecting with a confidant. I will describe them and their effectiveness in my next blog.
