Scientists say feeling blue helps us learn from our mistakes

Jan 15, 2009 19:51 GMT  ·  By
Depression and grief are natural emotions that we should embrace, not ignore, psychiatrists tell us
   Depression and grief are natural emotions that we should embrace, not ignore, psychiatrists tell us

We live in a world that keeps repeating to us that we should head to a psychologist whenever we’re in a situation that we feel gets the best of us emotionally, as well as take a bunch of pills every night before going to bed to fight depression and sleeplessness. Not so anymore – scientists believe that depression might actually be good for us, therefore that it should be embraced and not heavily medicated to make it go away.

Researchers led by Professor Jerome Wakefield of New York University have come to the conclusion that, by taking drugs to fight depression as if it were a physical disease means we’re actually refusing to get in touch with our negative side, thus losing the motivation to change our lives for the better. Being depressed and, most importantly, surrendering to it can have extremely important consequences, such as learning from our mistakes and making us better appreciate what we want from life, as well as motivating us to do our best to get it.  

Furthermore, an increasing number of psychiatrists are now questioning whether taking drugs, which are known to have side effects, some of which can actually be quite significant, does not cripple one’s emotional development in ways that cannot yet be fully appreciated. By giving in to depression and grieving, they say, would mean people learned to deal with their emotions, at the same time reaching emotional maturity, a thing that becomes virtually impossible once medication is prescribed.

“When you find something this deeply in us biologically you presume it was selected because it had some advantage  -  otherwise we wouldn’t have been burdened with it. We’re fooling around with part of our biological make-up.” Professor Jerome Wakefield says about what anti-depression medication does to our body, in his book “The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder.”

Paul Keedwell, a psychiatrist at Cardiff University, says that even a full-blown state of depression can have a positive outcome, in that it can protect us from the effects of long-term stress. If we refuse, or are prevented by drugs from reflecting and getting in touch with our miserable side, “you might stay in a state of chronic stress until you’re exhausted or dead,” as Keedwell notes.