We are born with no need to go to therapy for depression. As we grow up, we are told to go to school, study hard, go to college, get a profession, get a job, get married, have children, raise them, work hard, have a lovely house, nice car, go on vacation, prepare for retirement, retire, and die. It is as if this is all there is to life.
While there is nothing wrong with any of this, there is a catch. We make an unconscious decision to make these things the reason for our happiness. And, if and when we lose any of them, we become depressed. Or, we will never be happy until we have them.
How many patients come to us and tell us that they feel depressed because they were demoted, or because of the stock market crash, and they lost some money? How about those who are depressed because they did not get the best job or because they did not get accepted to that school that would have made all the difference in their lives, or because that partner that is supposed to fulfill all their dreams broke up with them?
Of course, we all want the best for ourselves and for those around us. Of course, we are all driven to do our best, be our best, and have the best. Does that mean depression is the result of not having these things?
The Mental Health field has been buying into this belief for far too long. Despite the scientifically rigorous work in a large number of modalities, including CBT, DBT, and Logotherapy, the vast majority of the field supports these faulty beliefs. The practice of “I will be happy when…” is doing a disservice to the world, to the patients and clients we serve, to us, clinicians, and to the field as a whole.
This cannot go on, and this system is unsustainable. We also know that we do not change a system by fighting its current reality. Instead, we change a system by creating a new one that will make the old one irrelevant. A new system starts with us. A new system starts with us undoing the same faulty beliefs that have been handed to us. A new system starts with us experientially learning the scientifically proven causes of depression, what it takes to prevent it, and what it takes to treat and cure it.