Existential Depression

I read Dr. Grohol's article about Existential Depression, and it left me wanting (sorry, DocJohn )

I am not sure what I am getting at or what I want to say or ask, but I do know that I experience this type of depression quite often.

Does / can anyone add; or have comments about this?

Can you post the link to make it easy to find the article? I searched on "existential depression" on PC but came up with nothing.

link

It rotates on the homepage.

I know what it's like to struggle to find meaning.....always wondering deep thoughts and not finding the answers in common conversational topics, a need to dig deeper........

I think it's just the normal, regular, "what is life" questions everyone asks themselves. I think the only way out of them (only way to answer them) is to search for the answers that make sense to you personally.

A book I really liked is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's The Evolving Self

A quote of his (not from that book I don't think) is:

“Whether we like it or not, each of us is constrained by limits on what we can do and feel. To ignore these limits leads to denial and eventually to failure. To achieve excellence, we must first understand the reality of the everyday, with all its demands and potential frustrations.”

Maybe it is the constant need to find an explanation to everything that has happened and not finding leads to more insatiable yearning... Thinking that everything has a reason as if it is a science when there really is no reason except it is all in the mind.

I am reading a book right now written by an Existential Psychotherapist (James Bugental), so this might be a good type of therapy for existential depression. It helps clients deal with their existential questions and despair, find answers, deal with ambiguity in life, etc. Existential therapy falls within the larger psychotherapy approach of humanistic psychology. Here is a link about existential psychotherapy:
http://www.existential-therapy.com/Index.htm

I did find when I began psychotherapy with my current therapist (who is from the humanistic psychology tradition) that one of the most powerful things he did for me that helped with my depression was to give me hope. (I had a previous CBT therapist and her approach did not give hope and did not help me.)

I know this isn't the spiritual forum.....but personally, I have found that when I got involved in a bible study that focused on the Fruits of the Spirit.......it really gave me the insight I needed to answer for me.....the existential questions & feelings I was going through so deeply before then. For me, I have found that I can find the guidence I need for those questions through the bible......added to that, the meaning for my life. I can see that my questions as to the value of my life & what in the world am I even existing & what purpose would there ever be for life is answered through the bible & God's word.

I can hold the secular concepts of those questions & find the secular answers to those questions within books.....but it is important to see all aspects of those existential questions & without adding the understanding of the bible into the picture.....there is a real lack of the whole picture of life which I know I was definitely missing & could relate deeply with the existential depression.....especially after loosing my career & not having a marriage that would add anything to my life......I saw nothing there for me & obviously...nothing in the future without a career that I had worked all my life & focused on forever to be the main part of my life.....without that....there was no meaning.....until now.

This post is about what I have found as the answer to my existential depression.....they didn't have this term in 1994.....don't know if it would be good enough to get disability for either.....but honestly.....I think this was really what I was dealing with for all those years that it was called Major Depression recurrant.....based on a situation that occured in my life....but because I couldn't answer those questions....I couldn't let go of the depression until now.

Debbie

Candybear!

You know? Starting from that particular perspective may be what I need. I KNOW these questions can only be answered "generally," that I must accept this before I can move on to my "physical" existance (of which I feel is minute most of the time) in this world.

Hmmmm

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(I had a previous CBT therapist and her approach did not give hope and did not help me.)

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I've had both CBT and DBT for my BPD (OMG! )

Neither had the successes I hoped for, although I learned much about my illness and was shown alternate ways to cope with the most difficult of times.

I've always been afraid of the 'big picture,' but if one thinks about it, the explanation must always be much more vague - the opposite of what I need as a detail freak.

Wow! I hope I try going about things this way. It would be totally opposite from what my mind wants to do!

Oooh, I forgot about the black - the ultimate realization that we are so, so insignificant in the grand universe is very difficult to balance with the bigger picture...

ok, lost myself here. BRB (?)

It's hard trying to make sense of everything,
it's especially hard when you consider everything and intertwine understanding to come up with a rational conclusion. Although I have existential beliefs myself, I believe their is no conclusion....their are things we are not meant to fully understand.

Sunny, that is a great link--thank you so much.

Yalom addresses separately in his book "Love's Executioner" the subjects of Death (several chapters), Life Meaning, Freedom. I particularly like this from the chapter on Life Meaning:

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from Love's Executioner:
We humans appear to be meaning-seeking creatures who have had the misfortune of being thrown into a world devoid of intrinsic meaning. One of our major tasks is to invent a meaning sturdy enough to support a life and to perform the tricky maneuvering of denying our personal authorship of this meaning. Thus we conclude that it was "out there" waiting for us. Our ongoing search for substantial meaning systems often throws us into crises of meaning.

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When my son became an adult and moved away, I was left with such a crisis. Single, the meaning in my life was no longer there. I suspect it is this way for many mid-life crises. I also think this can crash head-on with life stages (Erickson) and make it even more challenging to work through.