I am a board-certified cognitive behavioral therapist so people ask my advice about depression all the time. I am afraid of a man recently who wife is suffering from depression. She is on medication and is quite convinced by her doctor that she needs it to remain comfortable. She just wanted a suggestion for some meditation or hypnosis tapes so she could relax better.
The man said that his wife was helped by my website but had never read any of my two books, and was not interested in reading any more information about depression.
He asked my advice and I said to have happened to have had obviously (to me) decided to be emotionally dependent rather than be a free person who was in charge of her own mind, as evidenced by the fact that She was not interested in any more information.
Perhaps that was a little harsh on my part, for the man quickly responded that she was a very intelligent woman who had a professional career.
I must he said that her position is the necessity of her struggle with depression and being on medication had to be legitimate, and must be respected, because she was so smart, and so did not need any more information.
It is a matter of education and mind set. If you are ignorant about how your own brain works, you will unwittingly be giving it wrong instructions when you are in the throes of a deep depression, or that great breath work, you will be convinced that you will have BE depressed, or stressed and you will keep thinking about your depression and your stress.
You will not believe that you are some thinking some other non-emotional thoughts, both depression and stress will go away. This is because the brain is always the direction of And by changing your thoughts. And depression and or stressful neural patterns, and start following the new more productive neural patterns you have chosen. Then depression and stress will stop.
Similarly, a lot of smart doctors and surgeons, before a doctor & # 39; s assistant named Semmelweiss tried to change their minds in 1847, did not believe they should wash the blood off their hands between operations.
Semmelweiss tried to convince the doctors and surgeons in his hospital to wash their hands and surgical procedures. Semmelweiss saem any microbes himself, Semmelweiss deduced, from mere personal observation, that blood appeared to be a carrier of disease. used to yell at the doctors parading in their bloody aprons from patient to patient "You are killing the patients."
They had had him upstart? They had him committed to an insane asylum where he was allegedly dead.
They were uninformed, ignorant. (Ignorant is not the same thing as unintelligent) and convinced in their minds that bloody aprons were not dangerous, but rather a badge of honor for their profession. They were the authority of medical knowledge, and coming from their great position of authority as chief surgeons, etc., they also came from a position of certainty.
This is the case of people that are convinced they can not control their own depression, anxiety, panic attacks, claustrophobia, mania, etc. And most medical doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists feed this belief. Indeed, one has to assume that they believe it as well themselves rather than they are just trying to make money from other people & # 39; s agony.
Those who educate themselves can learn how to get out of depression, anxiety, insomnia and a host of other things that people Perhaps this is a harsh thing to say but there is nothing more harsh than suffering helplessly from depression and anxiety when you can educate yourself out of that helplessness by learning how your own brain works.
