What's Good About Depression?
The Contribution of Depression to Survival
The theoretical assumption that the anxiety syndrome contributed to the survival of the prehistoric man has been accepted for many years by all professionals. I was very surprised to learn to what great degree joy and sadness have contributed to survival as well.
Price, in his fascinating book Evolutionary Psychiatry, argues that the ability to be joyous and to be sad is a common trait to all human beings, without regard to race or culture. His conclusion is that the ability to experience these emotions is a genetic trait that
contributed to the prehistoric man's survival. In his opinion, joy and sadness served as award and punishment. Joy encouraged activities that contributed to survival and procreation, whereas sadness prevented man from conducting activities that inhibited them.
He explains the difference between joy and sadness, the traits that contributed to survival, and the illnesses of depression and
manic-depression, that hindered survival. There is a statistical "normal curve" of all the physical and mental traits: most people have an average level of these traits and a small number have an extreme level in either direction. For example: most people are of average height, one percent are very tall and one percent very short.
The same "normal distribution" applies to mood. Most people are capable of feeling joy and sadness on the positive level that contributed to their survival. A small percentile feels these moods in the extreme, as expressed through depression or bi-polar disorder. Yet another small percentile suffers from emotional apathy. According to Price, in the prior era natural selection has favored people of average traits and therefore people of extreme traits lived fewer years and had fewer children. However, in modern society, where extreme traits do not preclude procreation and usually do not constitute mortal danger, these traits keep increasing in our society.
He recognizes the capability to feel slight depression, another valuable benefit for survival. As human beings we belong to the group of social animals with its dominance hierarchy, in which constant struggle persists in an effort to change the hierarchy. In a hierarchy struggle there is always a winner and a loser. Since the objective of the struggle is not to hurt the rival but rather to establish the hierarchy, the opponents will stop fighting, once it is established who is the strong one, before anyone is hurt.
In Price's opinion, the loser's reaction of depression contributes to the survival of both participants in three ways:
1. Depression, which is manifested by lack of energy, difficulty in making decisions, hopelessness and decline in self-esteem, causes the loser to stop fighting before he gets hurt. The feeling of worthlessness contributes to the loser's distortion in evaluating the gap between himself and the winner. He underestimates his own strength and overestimates the opponent's strength. As a result he withdraws from the fight and thus avoids being further hurt both physically and mentally.
2. The winner in the hierarchy struggle stops his attacks when he notices his opponent's depressive body language: downcast eyes, bent body, quiet voice, and crying. Stopping the fight enhances both of their chances for survival. In modern times the genetic tendency of the winner to stop fighting when signs of surrender/depression appear in his opponent is manifested by the natural
tendency not to continue shouting and punishing a person whose body language shows humiliation, deep sadness, begging for forgiveness, crying, and depression.
3. The loser uses the body language of depression in order to give a nonverbal message to his family and the people in his environment that he needs physical and emotional support. The depressed person also expresses his inability to meet the expectations of his environment. He experiences low energy and low self-esteem. As a result his loved ones lower their expectations. Through this behavior the depressed person acts like a dependent child and just as a child would not be rejected, he is not being rejected.
Price brings up an assumption as to why women are depressed more frequent than men. In addition, about 50% of women suffer from post-partum depression. In his opinion, a woman's tendency to suffer from depression serves as a non-verbal message to the man that if he wants his
offspring to survive he must support his spouse, especially after she gives birth.
In his opinion, people whose abilities exceed those of their work supervisors often experience depression. If these people were not experiencing depression, their self-esteem would be high and as a result they might show their abilities in public and even brag about them to their supervisors. This might arouse the envy of their supervisors, who might harass them. The depression syndrome thus improves the chances of their remaining at work.
A case study:
Bob, 45, has been referred to treatment due to depression, which has gotten worse in the last few months. He described the following symptoms: general lack of energy, self-absorption, loss of self-esteem, difficulty in falling asleep and obsessive thoughts about his current situation and his future.
Bob is married and a father of two children. According to him his family is warm and supportive. He described himself as a sensitive person who suffered from depression from a young age. He completed his high school and college studies summa cum laude although he is dyslexic, which slowed down his reading considerably. During his childhood years his classmates used to make fun of him due to his dyslexia. Since his
college days he has been successful in hiding this fact about himself from his friends and co-workers.
In the last three years Bob has worked in a high tech company and his professional capabilities have been greatly appreciated. In the last few months the company encountered numerous difficulties and it is feared that it may go out of business. He is worried that if the company closes down he will have to look for a new job in a field he is not skilled in. According to him, any job in a new field will demand a considerable investment of time for learning the field and he is afraid that because he is dyslexic it will present a very heavy burden. In
addition he is afraid that maybe in the new place people will find out that he is dyslexic and will disparage and reject him for it.
I suggested to Bob a positive definition for his symptoms based on the theory of evolution. I explained to him that the depression reaction is a common and normal protective reaction, which appears during hierarchy struggles among all social animals, including human beings. During the hierarchy struggles, one of the contenders who is afraid of failure lowers his chance of getting hurt by surrendering. Surrender symptoms
are identical to the symptoms dubbed as depression in modern society. Since in his childhood he always feared being discovered as dyslexic and thus being exposed to humiliation from his classmates, he developed a surrender-depression coping style. In his present job he has no need to manifest any signs of surrender because he is self-assured and there is no fear of his weakness being discovered. On the other hand, since he is afraid of a new workplace, he is going back to his old surrender-depression style. His coming for treatment indicates that he in not happy with this way of coping. In his treatment framework he was advised to replace this style with a positive coping style.
In the first part of treatment Bob was asked to bring up in his memory childhood experiences that brought about the surrender-depression reaction. In the course of our meetings he was instructed to imagine that he is a film director and also the main actor. I offered myself as the director's assistant. He was asked to experience twice every experience he recalled -- the first time, as he behaved in the past, and the second time, as he would have liked to behave, i.e. positive coping style without surrender-depression. In the second stage of the treatment
Bob learned to implement various relaxation techniques that contributed to his general relaxation and restful sleep. Bob cooperated eagerly and from one session to the next his mood improved and his fear of negative reactions in the new workplace declined significantly.