Speaker 1: When the bunny eats the carrot, it feels good for
Speaker 1: a minute, but if it felt good forever, it wouldn't
Speaker 1: hop along and try to find more carrots, and that
Speaker 1: would be the end of the bunny. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized the
Speaker 1: importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think ring true.
Speaker 1: And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good Wolfe Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest today is Jonathan Rottenberg, a leading researcher in
Speaker 1: the area of emotion and psychopathology, focusing on major depression.
Speaker 1: He's the author of the book The Depths, The Evolutionary
Speaker 1: Origins of the Depression, epidemic. John has authored over thirty
Speaker 1: five scientific publications, including Scientific American and The New York Time.
Speaker 1: Here's the interview. Hi Jonathan, Welcome to the show. Hi Eric,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Yeah, I am really excited to
Speaker 1: get you on. I enjoyed your book The Depths a lot.
Speaker 1: I thought there was a lot of really interesting points
Speaker 1: about depression that some of which I think are relatively
Speaker 1: common thinking, and then there were some that were very different.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to kind of get into that. But
Speaker 1: to start, we'll start like we always do, which is
Speaker 1: with the parable of two wolves. So our podcast is
Speaker 1: called The One You Feed, and it's based on that parable,
Speaker 1: which goes something like, there's a grandfather who's talking with
Speaker 1: his grandson and he says, in life, there are two
Speaker 1: wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One
Speaker 1: is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and
Speaker 1: bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a minute,
Speaker 1: and he asked his grandfather, well, which one wins, And
Speaker 1: the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 1: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 1: you do well. UH. I think that the parable speaks
Speaker 1: to the ambivalence. UM. It's a parable about ambivalence that
Speaker 1: we have the possibility for two kinds of reactions, for
Speaker 1: two kinds of behaviors UH and depressed people UM. For
Speaker 1: so many UM produce such an ambivalent reaction. On the
Speaker 1: one hand, people want to help UM, they want to love,
Speaker 1: they want to empathize. But on the other hand, depressed
Speaker 1: people for for many are are scary. Mental mental illness,
Speaker 1: mental health conditions are unfamiliar to many people, and often
Speaker 1: what people do is pull back from depressed people withdraw
Speaker 1: judge UM. And and I think that it's a great
Speaker 1: challenge for us to feed our good wolf and overcome
Speaker 1: UM the age old stigma and and fear UM that
Speaker 1: surrounds this condition. So let's talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: your book, The Depths. Can you sort of give us
Speaker 1: a walk through of your your core theory, which to
Speaker 1: me it basically sounds like what you're saying is that
Speaker 1: depression is UH an evolutionary adaptation that has gone wrong
Speaker 1: in certain cases, and that our current model of only
Speaker 1: looking at depression is a deficit in someone, is an
Speaker 1: incomplete way of looking at it. Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: UM the dominant paradigm. So the dominant way of thinking
Speaker 1: about depression, both in research and in treatment UM is
Speaker 1: to think of depressed people as lacking something fundamental, whether
Speaker 1: that's a neurotransmitter in their brain or an ability to
Speaker 1: control their emotions, or a fault in their cognition, or
Speaker 1: some deficit and how they relate to other people. And
Speaker 1: UH that has really brought us to um a terrible
Speaker 1: pass where despite all the incredible resources that are being
Speaker 1: poured into research and treatment, the problem of depression is
Speaker 1: actually getting worse. UH now affects about one in five
Speaker 1: people in the United States. The World Health Organization and
Speaker 1: other groups project the depression is actually going to be
Speaker 1: a growing problem in the future, with a more negative
Speaker 1: impact than things like cancer, war in in accidents. And
Speaker 1: so in the book, I really criticized the the defect modelism,
Speaker 1: calling it and say that we're going to make a
Speaker 1: lot more progress, We're gonna understand depression a lot better
Speaker 1: if we think of it as a mood, as a
Speaker 1: mood state, and that our ability to be very depressed.
Speaker 1: Our ability to have clinical depression, which can be a
Speaker 1: dangerous thing, is actually connected connected to this very useful
Speaker 1: adaptation for mood which helps us uh approach opportunities, grab
Speaker 1: rewards that are in our environment, and withdraw from threats,
Speaker 1: and stop our behavior when we're getting into trouble. And
Speaker 1: so what drives you to arrive at the position that
Speaker 1: it's more of evolutionary adaptation than it is a deficit.
Speaker 1: What are some of the things that led you to
Speaker 1: believe that? Sure, I mean, I think that UM. We
Speaker 1: have to see that we have kind of a unique
Speaker 1: resistance to seeing UM depression is connected to evolution an adaptation.
Speaker 1: We really have no problem seeing that for other aversive
Speaker 1: and unpleasant UM kind of emotional states. So we have
Speaker 1: no problem seeing that anxiety is protective, It keeps us uh,
Speaker 1: keeps us vigilant against threats. We have no problem seeing
Speaker 1: that pain is a good defense against damage to our bodies.
Speaker 1: But for some reason, many people have come to the
Speaker 1: the view that that sadness and low mood are completely useless. UM.
Speaker 1: But clearly, UM, we see that across humans and other
Speaker 1: species when they're put in situations where there is really
Speaker 1: nothing that that a person or an animal can do,
Speaker 1: whether that's a famine, whether that's an environment where there
Speaker 1: are no rewards, or the the organisms facing constant punishment.
Speaker 1: UH that what you see is that the UH animal
Speaker 1: will stop behaving, will will um cease pursuing rewards, will
Speaker 1: sort of stay in place. And what we have UM
Speaker 1: in human low mood UH is basically a in a
Speaker 1: you know, an elaboration on that basic, very primitive UM
Speaker 1: animal capacity. So you say that depressions purpose that you
Speaker 1: think is to is to help us, it's it's evolutionary
Speaker 1: purposes to help us disengage. Absolutely. So, if you're a
Speaker 1: bear and you're fishing for salmon and you're spending all
Speaker 1: day in the same spot UH, and you're being very
Speaker 1: active and pursuing that reward and there are no rewards available,
Speaker 1: the fact that the the bear has a stock mechanism
Speaker 1: to say there are no rewards here to get it
Speaker 1: to cease behaving is incredibly useful UM. So you know,
Speaker 1: you think of all kinds of situations where it's useful
Speaker 1: to pause behavior. It's not a good idea for a
Speaker 1: person or an animal to head out on a new
Speaker 1: UH direction during a blizzard, that's a time for hunkering down.
Speaker 1: And there are a variety of situations where pausing behavior
Speaker 1: is the best option. And there are a variety of situations, um,
Speaker 1: both with humans and with animals. The one that comes
Speaker 1: to mind the quickest is, uh, the death of a
Speaker 1: close relationship, where there's a situation that cries out to
Speaker 1: stop what you're doing, to pause, to analyze what's going on.
Speaker 1: What does this mean for the future, And Uh, it's
Speaker 1: not a pleasant state. But if we didn't have it,
Speaker 1: um we we we we really would be in a
Speaker 1: far worse position. And so you're saying that it's basic
Speaker 1: purpose is to help us disengage in so that in
Speaker 1: situations where more activity might not be the right idea,
Speaker 1: and it does that by the purposes it lowers your mood,
Speaker 1: and a lower mood is going to sort of naturally
Speaker 1: slow you down. But you say so with depression with animals,
Speaker 1: it seems pretty straightforward. And then you go on to
Speaker 1: say that with humans, part of the reason you think
Speaker 1: that it's gotten out of control would be certain particular
Speaker 1: positive human tendencies that we have. Yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker 1: So the defect model doesn't have a very smart account
Speaker 1: for why there would be more depression now then there
Speaker 1: wasn't a past in the past. The idea would be
Speaker 1: if you hold that view that humans suddenly became more defective,
Speaker 1: and I don't think that's true, and I don't see
Speaker 1: anyone really making a strong argument that that's true. But
Speaker 1: if you if you take the perspective of mood in
Speaker 1: the idea that low mood is an adaptation, you don't
Speaker 1: need uh. You don't need humans to becoming be more defective.
Speaker 1: In fact, some of the things that human beings do
Speaker 1: very well um are the things that can get people
Speaker 1: into a lot of trouble with their moods. So, for example,
Speaker 1: humans have elaborate language that other animals don't have, and
Speaker 1: so we can elaborate upon a mood. Humans can have
Speaker 1: a have a very elaborate conceptual self, So chimpanzee can
Speaker 1: feel bad, but only human being can feel bad about
Speaker 1: feeling bad and spend that thought over and over uh
Speaker 1: um a terrible mother in their head, and that will
Speaker 1: deepen the depression. Only humans can set very high goals,
Speaker 1: for example, a goal to be famous um. Goals that
Speaker 1: are very far in the future. Uh. Animals tend to
Speaker 1: have more short term goals, and humans can set any
Speaker 1: kind of goal. I mean the the what language and
Speaker 1: planning and our our unbelievable frontal hopes enables is us
Speaker 1: in some ways to get depressed about a greater variety
Speaker 1: of things. But this these are the things that enable
Speaker 1: enabled us to dominate the planet. UM. Many of these
Speaker 1: capacities and the same capacities are are really UM a
Speaker 1: big component of why there is so much depression now.
Speaker 1: And you talk about that, UM, you talk about humans
Speaker 1: as being meaning making machines as and we make meaning
Speaker 1: out of things, and that depression in some cases is
Speaker 1: that meaning making machine. I'd like to say that it's
Speaker 1: kind of fun uh in in overdrive in an ability
Speaker 1: to to turn off. And you talk about the last
Speaker 1: couple of shows that I've done, UM, I do some
Speaker 1: shows where I just talked for a little bit, and
Speaker 1: I've talked a lot about rumination, which is something that
Speaker 1: you also talk about in your book a fair amount.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about that meaning making machine and rumination
Speaker 1: and the role that plays sure, So it's really interesting.
Speaker 1: So our mood system is it's responding to inputs that
Speaker 1: UM like language, that are in our consciousness, and that's
Speaker 1: also responding to a lot of things that are outside
Speaker 1: of our consciousness, like UH, light levels and how much
Speaker 1: sleep we're getting and things like that. Um our ability
Speaker 1: to think about our moods, the significance of our moods
Speaker 1: is often useful because it enables us to solve problems.
Speaker 1: But sometimes people get stuck and they are literally spinning
Speaker 1: the very same thought over in their head for days, months, weeks,
Speaker 1: and and and sometimes uh longer than that. Um and
Speaker 1: these are often very negative thoughts about, uh, why can't
Speaker 1: I fill in the blank, make friends? Why can't I
Speaker 1: get a job? Why can't I get over this depression?
Speaker 1: And those are the kind of thoughts that tend to
Speaker 1: deepen depression and make it last longer and make a
Speaker 1: person feel very hopeless. So language and the ability to
Speaker 1: think about things is a double edged sword. Uh. And
Speaker 1: that we have the ability to connect with others through language,
Speaker 1: to tell stories that might help us solve a problem,
Speaker 1: overcome a problem, understanding depression, but also this ability to ruminate,
Speaker 1: to ruminate, um, what you what you're talking about, which
Speaker 1: really is a kind of spinning one's wheels. Do you
Speaker 1: believe that low mood. I'm circling back to our previous
Speaker 1: our previous topic. Do you believe that low mood is
Speaker 1: in adaptation and depression is the extension of that beyond
Speaker 1: when it's useful, or is depression itself, um, part of
Speaker 1: that adaptation or I might just being semantic at this point. No,
Speaker 1: I think it's an important distinction. So low mood comes
Speaker 1: in in in um degrees, so it can be really mild,
Speaker 1: barely noticeable. I'm sure you've noticed times you've felt a
Speaker 1: little bit down. Uh. Virtually everyone has experienced mild or
Speaker 1: moderate low mood where you know you you'll be thinking
Speaker 1: some negative thoughts in and be feeling less vigorous and
Speaker 1: and kind of behaving less. But it goes all the
Speaker 1: way to very severe, incapacitating low mood, where a person
Speaker 1: can't get out of bed uh and they've ceased eating uh,
Speaker 1: and they really have ceased behaving to the point where
Speaker 1: someone might be in the hospital. UM. So that's all
Speaker 1: on a continuum, and I think that UM, all the
Speaker 1: things that UH might explain why someone is in a milder,
Speaker 1: moderate UH low mood are the very same things that
Speaker 1: explain uh more severe UH depression. We don't need separate explanations.
Speaker 1: But a severe depression, clinically significant depression is just a
Speaker 1: just a more intense form of low mood. In yes,
Speaker 1: I think that low mood can become dangerous. Um it's
Speaker 1: it's probably not helpful, you know, when people are stuck
Speaker 1: in a low mood for a long time. But there's
Speaker 1: always the possibility that someone will be able to work
Speaker 1: their way out of low mood and understand what that
Speaker 1: low mood was signify or what it was, what it
Speaker 1: was all about. One of the points that you make, though,
Speaker 1: is that consistent, persistent low mood is a likely indicator
Speaker 1: of future and more severe depression. That you call it persistence,
Speaker 1: this sort of ongoing right, I mean, one of the
Speaker 1: big themes of the book is why does some people
Speaker 1: get get trapped? Uh in in in long, punishing depressions.
Speaker 1: And there's often many reasons that are pushing a person.
Speaker 1: I mean, I should say uh in a spirit of disclosure,
Speaker 1: I was one of those people. I was depressed for
Speaker 1: about four years and a number of the things that
Speaker 1: I would talk about in the book as the motors
Speaker 1: of depression, such as rumination, such as having being stuck
Speaker 1: on goals that uh, you cannot reach and making no
Speaker 1: progress towards those goals. But by the same token, not
Speaker 1: um being willing to relinquish or give up those goals.
Speaker 1: That was me um. But different people have different motors UM.
Speaker 1: So this this mood system is open to many different inputs.
Speaker 1: So it's it's open to environmental inputs. So many people
Speaker 1: have a severe um event that happens to them that
Speaker 1: triggers the depression. They might have a divorce, they might
Speaker 1: have a loss of a job, they might have God
Speaker 1: forbid the loss of a significant other that triggers the depression.
Speaker 1: And then layered on top of that is often how
Speaker 1: people react to the depression. So things like how do
Speaker 1: they cope with the depression? Are they able to are
Speaker 1: they able to control their thoughts or do they get
Speaker 1: into this kind of spiral. Are they able to connect
Speaker 1: with other people or do they become more isolated? So
Speaker 1: you know, what often happens is that most everyone faces adversity,
Speaker 1: but for some that adversity will turn into a more
Speaker 1: sustain more long lasting depression. In the book is an
Speaker 1: exploration particularly of cases where the depression does sustain itself
Speaker 1: and kind of take a life of its own. You
Speaker 1: talk about three things that seed low mood. You talk
Speaker 1: about UM, events, temperaments, and routines. Can you maybe just
Speaker 1: spend a minute or so on each of those and
Speaker 1: and talk about the role they're playing. This depression epidemic
Speaker 1: that we're having in the United States and in the world,
Speaker 1: UH is happening because the breeding grounds, breeding grounds for
Speaker 1: low mood are so fertile. And that's because there is
Speaker 1: a combination so so the combination of people who are
Speaker 1: predisposed uh by there by their genes UM to have
Speaker 1: certain kinds of moods. So some people tend towards being
Speaker 1: a bit more anxious uh than others, um, more fearful,
Speaker 1: towards having more periods of low mood than others. But
Speaker 1: then on top of that are routines, so we don't
Speaker 1: many people unfortunately don't get enough sleep, UM, they don't
Speaker 1: get enough light UM. And this too, UM is one
Speaker 1: of the one of the big seeds. So for why
Speaker 1: so many people are already walking around in a in
Speaker 1: a low mood state and they're kind of just primed.
Speaker 1: So now, if you're walking around in your low mood
Speaker 1: stage for days and weeks or months, and then something
Speaker 1: bad happens to you. On top of that, you're more
Speaker 1: vulnerable to having a really serious and sustained UM depression.
Speaker 1: We can have events that happen, we have routines, and
Speaker 1: we have a temperament, and you talk about it's the
Speaker 1: idea of the emotional set point, right that some of
Speaker 1: us have are more inclined to. Our base is a
Speaker 1: little bit different. But one of the things that you
Speaker 1: also talk about is that in a culture that is
Speaker 1: so obsessed with happiness that those of us who might
Speaker 1: have a lower set point are sort of always striving
Speaker 1: towards something that may not be really possible or ideal
Speaker 1: for us. That's exactly right, So you can you can
Speaker 1: look at this as a as a sad thing or
Speaker 1: is a potentially positive thing, because I've dentified some things
Speaker 1: that are pretty hard to control. It's pretty too hard
Speaker 1: to control your tempera it. You know, you you come
Speaker 1: into the world with a certain predisposition to have certain
Speaker 1: kinds of moods, and you can't always control events. Um.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people get laid off because the plant closes UM.
Speaker 1: But you can control, I think, to a large degree,
Speaker 1: how you react to moods and you can control what
Speaker 1: your expectations are for mood. And we're really in a
Speaker 1: in a very remarkable place right now. UM. On the
Speaker 1: one hand, it makes sense, Uh, the pursuit of happiness
Speaker 1: is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. It's this American
Speaker 1: as apple pie. But on the other uh, people have
Speaker 1: developed extraordinary expectations UM for how happy they ought to feel.
Speaker 1: I think it's how happy they ought to or they
Speaker 1: think they should feel. UM. Some of this is driven
Speaker 1: by how happy they think other people are. UM. We're
Speaker 1: very social creatures, and things like social media UM can
Speaker 1: create a false sense that other people are happy all
Speaker 1: the time. And this may sound uh, you know, this
Speaker 1: may sound innocuous, but it's actually um pretty problematic because
Speaker 1: what happens is that people notice I'm not feeling all
Speaker 1: that happy. I'm actually feeling a little bit happy, unhappy,
Speaker 1: and I should be feeling much happier, and so what's
Speaker 1: wrong with me? And it sets in motion this question
Speaker 1: which begins the whole cycle of rumination, what's wrong with me?
Speaker 1: Why am I not happier? Why can't I get over this?
Speaker 1: And so the inability to tolerate a little bit of
Speaker 1: depression a little bit of low mood UH can create
Speaker 1: actually a crisis where someone comes to question, um, the
Speaker 1: whole path of their life. Right. I think that there
Speaker 1: is an idea that we should always be happy, and
Speaker 1: that's that's the picture that's painted by a variety of things.
Speaker 1: And then when we're not, Uh, it does it raises
Speaker 1: a lot of question gins and it starts to feel
Speaker 1: like failure, and it starts to it does breed much more.
Speaker 1: It turns the meaning making machine on. You know, if
Speaker 1: you again look at it from the perspective of evolution,
Speaker 1: the end of evolution most certainly is not happiness. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sad to say that, I'm sad to break that news. Um,
Speaker 1: if it's news, the end of evolution is survival. Happiness
Speaker 1: is actually a useful certain kinds of UM positive food
Speaker 1: states are a useful means towards that end. So feeling
Speaker 1: a shot of adrenaline of excitement after your data the
Speaker 1: prompt says yes, that is incredibly adaptive. When you get
Speaker 1: a raise feeling, that shot of adrenaline and that positive feeling,
Speaker 1: it's a signal that you're moving towards an important goal.
Speaker 1: When you're getting closer to that goal. But what happens
Speaker 1: is that those feelings inevitably fade, and you think that's cruel. UM.
Speaker 1: You think that's not useful, but it actually is useful
Speaker 1: because what evolution wants us to do is to strive
Speaker 1: and not to stand pat UM. It would be great
Speaker 1: if that feeling of adrenaline and that uh, that great
Speaker 1: excitement lasted. But you know when when the when the
Speaker 1: bunny eats a carrot, um, it feels good for a minute,
Speaker 1: but if it felt good forever, it wouldn't hop along
Speaker 1: and try to find more carrots, and that would be
Speaker 1: the end of the bunny. One of the things that
Speaker 1: you say is that, and we'll talk. I think it
Speaker 1: would be I'd like to turn the conversation here more
Speaker 1: towards Okay, what do we do with this UM? So
Speaker 1: I guess the first question I would ask is do
Speaker 1: you believe that you know, there's a lot of medicines
Speaker 1: out there. There's a lot of UM therapies that intervene
Speaker 1: and we'll get into more of the UM i'll call
Speaker 1: mental therapies, but there are physical therapies that intervene UM
Speaker 1: with with some degree of success UM medication. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: brain stimulation, different things, and so how does how does
Speaker 1: the fact that those sometimes work line up with with
Speaker 1: what you're saying, because I know that you are you
Speaker 1: are critical of the way that we treat depression in
Speaker 1: this country as being hopelessly incomplete, and I would agree
Speaker 1: with that, But what is the role you think some
Speaker 1: of those more physical treatments play. I think they have
Speaker 1: a role, and it makes sense that you would be
Speaker 1: able to move the mood system with with the drug.
Speaker 1: We try to do that crudely all the time by
Speaker 1: drinking alcohol or taking illicit drugs. UM. I think that
Speaker 1: we're handicapping ourselves by not using all the levers that
Speaker 1: we can pull to to move mood. So we've put
Speaker 1: a lot of eggs in the basket of medications. And
Speaker 1: it's not that they have no utility whatsoever. They're very useful.
Speaker 1: For about a third of the people who take medication
Speaker 1: get a real substantial benefit. And that's actually not that
Speaker 1: different in number than the people who UM would take
Speaker 1: would undergo an accepted m psychotherapy for depression. But it
Speaker 1: leaves a lot of room, I think for the individual
Speaker 1: UM to experiment and find their own route out of depression.
Speaker 1: UM and I think that's what that's what we need
Speaker 1: to do, is to encourage people to become more literate
Speaker 1: about where their moods come from and to take more
Speaker 1: control if they're having a serious problem like depression, of
Speaker 1: finding their way out of depression. That doesn't mean refuse treatment,
Speaker 1: absolutely not. It actually means, uh, get in treatment, but
Speaker 1: don't expect that to be your salvation. That use that
Speaker 1: as a tool. Ask tough questions to the doctor and um,
Speaker 1: push them to help you as much as they can.
Speaker 1: And then UM, through your knowledge about yourself and your mood,
Speaker 1: you can get yourself the last mile. Because in the
Speaker 1: end it's really not enough. I think that we need
Speaker 1: to um have higher standards. So a lot of times, UM,
Speaker 1: we call it drugs successful. If it makes people less depressed.
Speaker 1: I mean that's nice. It's nice to be less depressed.
Speaker 1: But I think the goal should be that people are
Speaker 1: actually flourishing, that they're leading meaningful lives, that they really
Speaker 1: put the depression completely behind them, and so the drugs
Speaker 1: are not going to do that. Yeah you, um, you
Speaker 1: posted something on your Facebook page and I have no
Speaker 1: idea what to call it, but it was basically a
Speaker 1: vase that had been put back together with gold, and
Speaker 1: I think that the underlying idea there is that and
Speaker 1: we talked about it on this show a lot, that
Speaker 1: these problems are, these challenges are can actually you can
Speaker 1: do more than simply get back to where you were.
Speaker 1: They can be they can be bridges to much better lives.
Speaker 1: You know, it's true, And the defect model has no
Speaker 1: place to put that, UM, because if you were, uh,
Speaker 1: if you're looking at a person who had depression, and
Speaker 1: you're always seeing them as someone who has a problem
Speaker 1: in their brain, and they always have this problem, and
Speaker 1: they always should take medication even if they're feeling okay
Speaker 1: because this underlying problem. But there really is the reality
Speaker 1: that some people. We don't actually have as much research
Speaker 1: on these people as we should, but a substantial minority
Speaker 1: maybe of people who experience a significant depression never have
Speaker 1: another episode. And then a subgroup of those people not
Speaker 1: only no longer have an episode, but as you say, UM,
Speaker 1: they go on to lead richer, more meaningful lives. The
Speaker 1: depression may be part of their armor, maybe part of
Speaker 1: what enables them to be actually wiser. UM. In my
Speaker 1: own case, I think that UM I made a number
Speaker 1: of mistakes in my life and depression was I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it was a just dessert. UM. I certainly would
Speaker 1: not depression, wish depression on my worst enemy. Certainly not
Speaker 1: a depression that last for years. But I do think
Speaker 1: that gave me some valuable lessons that I take away
Speaker 1: and that I use every single day. UM. And it's
Speaker 1: not just the cliche, the cliche about you know, enjoyed
Speaker 1: the little things, though that is true if you've been
Speaker 1: flat on your back depressed. UM, normal mood feels kind
Speaker 1: of good. It feels better them than it did before.
Speaker 1: But in my own case, UM, and I think for
Speaker 1: many people who experienced depression, UM, it was a call
Speaker 1: to rebalance my life, UM, to look for meaning in
Speaker 1: different places UM than I did before, and UM, maybe
Speaker 1: not get as bent out of shape by certain kinds
Speaker 1: of everyday hassles and UH in concerns. Yeah, you mentioned
Speaker 1: a couple of three different sort of therapies or approaches
Speaker 1: that seem to have some besides medicine, that have some
Speaker 1: detectable and known effects on low mood, and those would
Speaker 1: be UM, acceptance, mindfulness and cognitive behavior therapy. And you
Speaker 1: say that the thing they all have in common is
Speaker 1: they turned down the volume on that meaning making machine.
Speaker 1: Can you explain how those fit together? Sure? So we
Speaker 1: all have these awful voices in our head at some time,
Speaker 1: and when you're depressed, and if you had depression and
Speaker 1: those voices start to come back, um, they're very threatening
Speaker 1: and they can they can really um cause people to
Speaker 1: spiral downwards because what happens is that people take these
Speaker 1: often very critical voices and these bad feelings as the
Speaker 1: soul reality. And what techniques like mindfulness acceptance in cognitive
Speaker 1: behavioral therapy allow people to do is not block out,
Speaker 1: not refuse to recognize that these voices exist. It gives
Speaker 1: them their space, but it also allows people to to
Speaker 1: kind of question and also to have a certain distance
Speaker 1: from their own thoughts and feelings. And that enables people
Speaker 1: a kind of breathing space and an ability to say, well,
Speaker 1: that's it's it's a it's a mood. It's a terrible
Speaker 1: mood right now, but I know actually it probably will pass.
Speaker 1: And it gives them a kind of patience that is
Speaker 1: incredibly useful. Can make the difference between a bad mood
Speaker 1: lasting a day and a bad mood lasting a week.
Speaker 1: One of the things you talk about in the book
Speaker 1: that I think is really really interesting, and you you
Speaker 1: talk about the fact that the general theory is that,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're a psychologist and you're treating depressed people,
Speaker 1: you ought to have more Kleenex in the office because
Speaker 1: depressed people are likely to cry more, um, which I've
Speaker 1: always found to be that's never resonated with me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't think that's true, but you've got you talk
Speaker 1: about studies that show that depressed people actually react less
Speaker 1: to negative stimulus uh than people who are not depressed,
Speaker 1: as well as reacting less to positive stimulus. The overall
Speaker 1: thing is that there is very little response to stimulus
Speaker 1: that varies. And I think you call this emotional context insensitivity.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Yeah. I Mean what how I see depression
Speaker 1: fundamentally is when a person is in a such a strong,
Speaker 1: such a strong mood state, uh that they actually start
Speaker 1: to disengage from their environment. And it's not that they're
Speaker 1: not feeling anything. Um. Depressed people tend to uh feel horrible.
Speaker 1: I mean they feel absolutely horrible, but they feel that
Speaker 1: horrible all the time, whether they're looking at a sunset
Speaker 1: or whether they're watching a sad movie, and so you,
Speaker 1: as the external observer looking at a depressed person, say wow,
Speaker 1: they reacted pretty much the same way to the beautiful
Speaker 1: sunset as they did to this terrible tear jerk or film,
Speaker 1: And the depressed person says, yeah, it was pretty much
Speaker 1: all the same. To me, it was all pretty much horrible.
Speaker 1: And so that's motion context and sensitivity in a nutshell.
Speaker 1: It's this kind of shutdown of our normal, flexible engagement
Speaker 1: with the world and kind of replacing with this horrible
Speaker 1: gray monotone which is also responsible for my legendary poker face.
Speaker 1: So there's one other thing that you say in there,
Speaker 1: and I think we're we're nearing the end of our time.
Speaker 1: But you say that a person who is able to
Speaker 1: get agitated still or angry or feel a stronger response
Speaker 1: is more he's more likely to climb out a depression. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does seem that as depressions grind on for um
Speaker 1: months or years, that people have a much harder time
Speaker 1: having this typical emotion flexibility and ability to be cheered
Speaker 1: up by the occasional good thing that might happen, and
Speaker 1: the occasional ability to react to even bad things that
Speaker 1: are going on. I mean, it's sort of ironic. I think, UM,
Speaker 1: when I was depressed, and I'm thinking of times when
Speaker 1: I would watch terrible things on on the television, UM,
Speaker 1: like you know, there's a famine going on, and you
Speaker 1: see pictures of swollen bellies and and flies on little children.
Speaker 1: That that, to me wasn't especially upsetting. It wasn't nearly
Speaker 1: as upsetting as UM, what was going on inside. And
Speaker 1: so I noticed, and I think this is borne out
Speaker 1: in the research that UM, when I started to actually
Speaker 1: react to that again, UM, that that was actually a
Speaker 1: sign that UM, that I was getting better. And so
Speaker 1: there are variations. Not all depressions are cracked up to
Speaker 1: be the same. Some last only a little while and
Speaker 1: some last a long time. And and so this kind
Speaker 1: of deadening of of response doesn't seem to be a
Speaker 1: very positive UM prognosticator, you know, a predictor, UM. But
Speaker 1: you know, these are the kinds of things that you
Speaker 1: would try to change. You try to change in therapy
Speaker 1: and and try to change you on your own over time.
Speaker 1: And so if if we were to if the if
Speaker 1: the conversation were to change, UM on a on a
Speaker 1: broader level, and we were to say, okay, let's say
Speaker 1: everybody woke up tomorrow and and and read your stuff
Speaker 1: and said, oh, I think that's right. The deficit model.
Speaker 1: That's no good. This is a mood disorder. What changes?
Speaker 1: How do we deal with um? This differently? And I'm
Speaker 1: less interested in a national response, although that has a role,
Speaker 1: But also what does an individual do with that information?
Speaker 1: I think it's huge actually, UM, because you're not thinking
Speaker 1: of your mood as something other than you as right
Speaker 1: now with our current view of depression, depression is basically
Speaker 1: an imposition of a foreign body. It's like a foreign invader, UM,
Speaker 1: And there's really nothing, nothing to learn from it, and
Speaker 1: there's nothing to do um, you know, I mean the
Speaker 1: in the in the in the classic biomedical model, UM,
Speaker 1: of a serotonin deficit, you take the pill and there's
Speaker 1: nothing for the patient to do. We're listening to prozac.
Speaker 1: But in my view, UM, we should always be listening
Speaker 1: to to our moods and we don't have to wait
Speaker 1: until we get severely depressed. In fact, we can be
Speaker 1: acting on this information and trying to put ourselves in
Speaker 1: a better place well before mood gets out of control.
Speaker 1: And I don't see the goal at all that we
Speaker 1: should aspire to a society that doesn't have any depression.
Speaker 1: I think that's an absurd goal, completely impossible goal. But
Speaker 1: rather a society where we are able to talk about
Speaker 1: our moods, we're able to understand our moods, and we're
Speaker 1: better able to contain them. Because right now what's happening
Speaker 1: is that millions of people are in these terrible mood states.
Speaker 1: They don't understand them, they're tremendously frustrated, and it's a
Speaker 1: big public health issue, and that um, they're not getting supported,
Speaker 1: They're having a lot of trouble finding help, and that's
Speaker 1: really the recipe for this depression epidemic. But on the
Speaker 1: individual level, there's tremendous amount that people can do. I mean, sure,
Speaker 1: reading my book is one first step, but you have
Speaker 1: to interpret this in terms of your own life. So
Speaker 1: what are the events that matter to you, what are
Speaker 1: the purposes that matter to you? Follow those purposes, UM,
Speaker 1: Learn how to tolerate the low moods, Learn how to
Speaker 1: adjust your goals so that you're not constantly of finding
Speaker 1: yourself pursuing goals that are unreachable. And I'm actually very optimistic, um,
Speaker 1: maybe more optimistic in some ways than this defect model,
Speaker 1: which says that if you've had depression, you should think
Speaker 1: of yourself as broken, that you need to be helped
Speaker 1: basically for the rest of your life. Um, I think
Speaker 1: that we can have a much more proactive view and
Speaker 1: that people can be much much healthier and the outcomes
Speaker 1: can be so much better than they are today. Great. So,
Speaker 1: one of the things about your model, and I'm now
Speaker 1: I'm sort of just filtering it through my own lens,
Speaker 1: is it has felt to me very much like depression
Speaker 1: is cyclical, Like it sort of just comes and it goes,
Speaker 1: and I have no real ability to tie it to
Speaker 1: life events, and then it just sort of passes. And
Speaker 1: the way I've started to deal with it to a
Speaker 1: certain extent is to and I guess this is this
Speaker 1: is turning down the meaning making machine as I go. Well,
Speaker 1: I treat it like the emotional flu I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: I just don't feel that great right now, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'll take care of myself and I'll come out the
Speaker 1: other side. This is not the time to be reevaluating
Speaker 1: every aspect of mine, you know, because I get into
Speaker 1: that spot and you suddenly, what does my life mean anything?
Speaker 1: But is there anything in your model that sort of
Speaker 1: accounts for that cyclical nature or the it just feels
Speaker 1: it's an odd thing. It feels very physical to me.
Speaker 1: Of course, it has a physical component. I mean, moods
Speaker 1: are so powerful because they harnessed the mind and they
Speaker 1: harnessed the body, and moods are very open to physical inputs.
Speaker 1: So if you don't get sleep, your mood suffers immediately,
Speaker 1: and that's the physical effects of the lack of restoration.
Speaker 1: If you're living in the northern hemisphere and it's the
Speaker 1: dead of winter, many people experience low mood, and that's
Speaker 1: because of the lack of light, lack of sunlight. And
Speaker 1: so there are many physical, both physical influences on mood
Speaker 1: that are not tied to specific events. And also mood
Speaker 1: has physical effects upon us. How else could it get
Speaker 1: us to stop behaving unless it affected our you know,
Speaker 1: our muscles and our hormones that are circulating. How else
Speaker 1: could it get us to think certain thoughts unless it
Speaker 1: was changing what was going on in our brain. So
Speaker 1: you know, moods are not this phantom state. They're this powerful,
Speaker 1: integrative force that gets us to do things or not
Speaker 1: do things. And so I think that what's exciting about
Speaker 1: my book. One of the things that I think is
Speaker 1: exciting is that I offer and talk about a multitude
Speaker 1: of of levers that people can pull in order to
Speaker 1: change their mood and also to try to understand their mood,
Speaker 1: because not all moods are as simple as I had
Speaker 1: a break up with, you know, with my girlfriend, and
Speaker 1: now I feel down about it, Or I did bad
Speaker 1: on an exam and now I do now I feel
Speaker 1: bad about it. Often people have a lot of trouble
Speaker 1: understanding what are the sources, and sometimes they'll never fully
Speaker 1: understand what are the sources because some of the sources
Speaker 1: are outside of your conscious awareness. But that's research on mood.
Speaker 1: Part of what we know is that things like light,
Speaker 1: things like sleep, things things like our physical activity level
Speaker 1: affect our mood as much as events and and and
Speaker 1: the people around us. Well, thank you very much for
Speaker 1: your time. I did enjoy the book. It got me
Speaker 1: thinking about a lot of different things. And I really
Speaker 1: like the work you're doing on trying to broaden the
Speaker 1: conversation on depression. Because I'm a I've I've benefited greatly
Speaker 1: from medicine, but I also recognize that that is only
Speaker 1: a piece of a much bigger puzzle. And I like that.
Speaker 1: That's what you're bringing to the table, is that you're
Speaker 1: just giving somebody a pill and sending them home is
Speaker 1: not really a treatment for the whole picture. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you very much. All Right, we'll take care of Jonathan
Speaker 1: and we'll talk again soon. Thank you very much, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me on the show. Okay, bye bye. To
Speaker 1: learn more about Jonathan Rottenberg and this podcast, go to
Speaker 1: one new feed dot net slash Rottenberg