John -- I recently taught a chapter that I hadn't for a long time, and I was reminded of the human behavior called the "self-serving bias."

It means that the natural human tendency is to interpret the good things that happen to us as due to our own skill, intelligence, effort, etc. And to interpret the good things that happen to others as due to luck.

It seems that many of us in depression or with other mental illness have something that would be just the opposite -- whatever we achieve that is good, we fob off as due to luck; whatever others accomplish, however meagre, we attribute to their having skills, intelligence, prowess greater than our own.