Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 18:05:28 +0200
Subject: Re:  Mind & Body, Depression
From: artefact-AT-t-online.de (Michael Eldred)


Cologne, 30 June 1998

Mike Staples schrieb:
> A person is depressed. There is a mood that takes him over. At the same
> time there is a chemical thing going on in his head. We find the two are
> related. Does the mood "cause" the chemical thing, or does the chemical
> thing "cause" the mood? Suppose we forget about what "causes" what, and
> think about the depression. Now I am back to my old saw about goals. If
> it is the goal to get rid of the depression, there are two (at least)
> points of view: 1) One could approach the chemical thing...administer a
> drug, turn on an electrode, slice off a frontal lobe or, 2) One could
> approach the mood, with it's associated relationship to thinking and
> experiencing -- working off a bad childhood, trouble with living in a
> technological world, feelings of abandonment, and so on.
>
> It so often appears to me that these, or combinations thereof, are the
> only choices, given the goal -- "to get rid of depression". And much of
> the argument in psychology revolves around trying to determin which side
> of this two-part scenario "works" the best. In other words, the
> chemical-thing side will point to the emotional-thing side and say, "You
> can fuss around for the next 10 years trying to get rid of this guys
> depression, with mixed results...or we can give him Prozac and spruce
> him up in two days." The emotion-thing side will say, "You might be able
> to spruce him up in two days, but what have you really done? All you
> have done is anesthetize his symptom. You have not addressed the real
> problem."

If it stays on the level of what works best, then perhaps Prozac is more 
effective. Depression is regarded as something to be gotten rid of, i.e. as a 
purely negative factor which the will wills into absence. The truth of treatment 
is then its effectiveness, corresponding to the will to will as the essential 
character of being. It requires another understanding of depression to regard it 
as a state of existence which is not simply a negative, disturbing factor and 
therefore as something to be eradicated. Depression as a mood is also 
revealing, and psychotherapy (a psychotherapist) can perhaps assist in learning 
how to look at and read what depression is revealing. This presupposes a patient 
who does not simply want the burden of crushing moods lifted and despatched, but 
is in some sense interested in understanding the whole of their own existence 
and of attaining another understanding of themselves and their place in the 
world. Following up this path means opening up the possibility of recasting 
one’s own existence through ‘taking stock’. Swallowing psychopharmaka, by 
contrast, only has the aim of removing a disturbing factor, thus allowing life 
to continue ‘as usual’. 

Bringing one’s own being-in-the-world to language (this doesn’t simply mean 
talking all the time about oneself) can be an enriching experience which allows 
language to change our understanding of ourselves and the world. “Humankind 
dwells poetically...” Certainly, discovering the wealth of language as it points 
into the various regions of world is not for everybody and would most probably 
fail any criteria of effectiveness you would care to name. 

Without being simply done away with, depression itself as a mood can alter in 
the way it is experienced, as a way of being which one can live through and live 
with. 

Michael
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