What is the general science of Depression?
The science of the mental health disorder known as Depression revolves around 3- general dimensions. These 3-dimensions include Biology (what is happening in the brain), Psychology (what is happening in the mind), and Mood (what is happening with feelings and emotions). It is important to note that the strongest and most influential dimension is the psychological dimension. This is true because the body follows the mind giving credence to the notion that we live where we believe.
Metaphorically speaking, if we placed Major Depressive Disorder under a high-resolution microscope, we would see these 3-dimensions working together to create a cycle of biology-psychology and mood that spirals downward. This downward spiral pulls the individual into a black hole that erodes and consumes the individual’s hope, purpose, will-power, resourcefulness and quality of life. These 3-dimensions working in concert comprise the source and the origin of what is producing the mental health disorder known as depression. This Depression cycle gains momentum and begins to train the brain to fire in a depressed direction generating persistent gloomy, self-defeating, and hopeless thinking that in turn creates a grey sky mood that only seems to get darker.
What is known about the biological science of Depression?
To this day conclusive information surrounding the actual biology of depression continues to elude the experts. These neurological scientists are not even certain about where exactly depression is located, in the brain. What we do know about the neural-biology of depression appears to include the role of neural transmitters like serotonin-norepinephrine and dopamine. Depressive symptoms seem to be produced by imbalanced measures of these neural transmitters. There also appears to be evidence to support that deficits surrounding blood flow in certain regions of the brain may well be generating symptoms of depression. Current studies also indicate that these abnormalities in the brain cause not only the presence of increased negative affect/feelings but also produce the increased absence of positive affect/feelings. This means that individuals who suffer from depression struggle not only with intrusive negative thoughts but also with the complete disappearance of positive thoughts. Using a computer metaphor, we might say that Depression is a virus that has been planted in the hardware of the brain. This virus then subsequently impacts the software of the mind generating negative and self-defeating thoughts and beliefs while at the same time erasing positive beliefs.
What is known about the psychological science of Depression?
Depression is an illness and like any illness it is tasked with both a purpose and a design. The purpose of Depression is to get you to press the self-destruct button, to carry out a suicide plan. This pathological goal is quite similar to the agendas of other medical illnesses that take life. Some examples might include the way that Luekemia kills white blood cells and how HIV kills T- cells. This information surrounding the way that Depression is bent on self-destruction helps us to see that while Depression is a psychological illness it is just as deadly as other illness. This unfeeling, hardline objective of Depression is woefully underestimated by the masses. This is one of the reasons why Depression frequently goes untreated.
The design of Depression is the strategy by which a Depression influences a soul to take one’s own life. The sentient being is after-all programmed to survive. to live out one’s life at all costs. The drive to survive is truly a force to be reckoned with. So how could a mental illness like depression defeat this hardwired program to stay alive?
A patient who was a long-term sufferer of Major Depression summed up the answer to this question in a poignant phrase “Depression defeats us by using the chronic persistence of the loss of the quality of life, it simply wears you down taking you to a place where self-destruction actually becomes appealing.” This means that Depression is not only diligent it is methodical. If we are to be successful in our struggle to fight off Depression, we would do well then to understand Depression’s methodology. This information will be helpful because it is a truth that knowledge is power. Thus, understanding the psychology of Depression is a critical step towards finding the way to deconstruct the science of Depression’s Black Hole effect on the mind.
How does Depression diminish and defeat the quality of one’s life?
The Depression’s first task in its efforts to diminish quality of life is to deplete the psychological energy in mind of the depressed individual. This is necessary due to the critical role that psychological energy plays surrounding human survival and quality of life. Psychological energy takes form in the human mind in what is known as the 5–Wells of the Soul. Depression is programmed to drain each of the 5-Wells of the soul. This reduction process leads to critical levels of depletion in each well.
The 5-Wells include;
Hope – One’s belief in a more positive outcome. One’s faith in a better tomorrow. One’s vision of a future that is both thriving and fulfilling.
Worth – One’s inherent possession of the value and sanctity of one’s life. One’s ownership of a dignity born from divine inspiration.
One’s sense of the majesty of the rarity of one’s being.
Purpose – One’s spiritual mission. One’s destination towards one’s original shape and the divine intention of you. One’s process of becoming a part of the bigness completing the circle of life by achieving wholeness through one’s destiny contribution.
Resourcefulness – One’s capacity to create approaches to resolving challenges and set-backs. One’s ability to recover from disappointment injury, and loss. One’s ability to restore normal levels of functioning.
Will-Power – One’s ability to assert individual choices in the face of strong opposition or adversity. One’s individual strength to overcome inner compensatory drives and impulses such as gluttony, greed, lust, envy, pride, sloth and anger. One’s ability to endure effort (the spending of energy) and suffering (the loss of energy due to illness, injury and/or violation) beyond one’s normal limits.
This psychological energy is required by each human mind to meet the demands of the day. These demands are called external stressors. To clarify this process let’s say that the average stressor load for the average human being is approximately 75 units per day.
Let’s say that each well of the soul contains 20-units of energy x’s 5-wells equals the notion that each human mind starts the day with 100 units of energy. The Depression using the 3-dimensions discussed earlier (biology-psychology-mood) makes hourly energy consumption demands of the five wells consuming for example 8-units of energy per well. Totaling to 40-units per day. The Depressed individual then wakes up with 60-units of energy rather than the customary 100-units. This means that the depressed individual must now face the daily stressors with only 60-units of psychological energy. Given that the average stressor demand per day consumes 75-units the result for the depressed individual is minus 15-units of psychological energy by days end. This state of depletion tends to increase anxiety levels as the individual now feels unable to handle the demands of the day. This anxiety then causes more energy depletion and so goes the vicious cycle of depression depletion.
It is important to understand that Depression’s depletion of the 5- Wells of the Soul is a critical step in the Depression’s pursuit of its primary goal to push the depressed individual towards self-destructive behavior choices. The process of depletion is important because when an individual believes that life is hopeless, helpless, powerless, purposeless, and worthless it is much easier to make self-destructive choices to appear to be an appealing and even logical solution. What makes this strategy so effective is the depression’s ability to make the depressed individual believe that the despair is real. While the Depression must produce the illusion of despair with its depletion process the Depression knows that the process will not work unless the depressed individual believes in this manufactured illusion of despair. The individual must choose to believe. When that choice is made the likelihood of suicidal ideation increases ten-fold. It is also important to note that while depression is working this depletion process in the psychological dimension of the individual it is simultaneously holding the brain hostage in a depressed neural pathway in the biological dimension while at the same time confining the mood to the state of apathy and hopelessness in the mood dimension. Using this strategy over prolonged time periods the Depression works this pathology to reduce the depressed individual’s life into a persistent state of dark despair.
How does Depression consume the energy from the 5-Wells of the Soul?
Stay tuned for Part II of The Science of Depression
Larry Marshall is a Licensed Professional Counselor at Greenway Therapy . Learn more about him on his BIO page.
