[krazibean]

http://psychcentral.com/ask-the-ther...e-how-we-feel/

I printed this post out and gave it to T, since she is always telling me I am in control of my behaviors and my emotions. When she read this article, she said she got really upset and even showed it to co-workers and had a big debate about it. She said she feels like writing back to this therapist. she was like, "did this therapist graduate yesterday?" I'm confused. Who do i trust? I love my T, but the article kinda makes sense. I don't know...

[lenjan]

I have to say, I thought that response was complete crap. I PM'd DocJohn and asked him to look at it, but I don't know if he has.

You absolutely can control -- to an extent -- how you feel. Let me use myself as an example: I had a really crappy day and right now I'm wallowing in it. I can choose to continue to wallow indefinitely, or I can choose to say, "yeah, today sucked, tomorrow's another day, onward and upward."

Some of your mood is biologic, to be sure, but not all of it. You always have at least somewhat of a choice.

Hope that helps.

Candy

[MyBestKids2]

I am definitely agreeing with the PC therapist on this one!



mbk2

[krazibean]

yes it does. I think my T is very wise and she knows what she's talking about. I like to trust what she says and i love it when we agree on things. I'm kinda gullible though so after reading this i questioned her.

Hmmm....ok, what we know biologically is that depression is caused by chemical imbalances particularly the serotonin, dopamine and (I always forget the other one). This can't be controlled with your power. That is why depression usually responds well to the appropiate medication.

Also, for example, if a person is HYPOthyroid, this causes depression. The low levels of thyroid hormones, particularly TSH and T4 cause problems in the binding of other chemicals such as serotonin. It is well documented that low thyroid levels cause depression. You can't control that...you need meds to control that.

Now, yes, you may be able to control situational issues. I have a crappy day at work, so I take a hot bath and relax and help myself get over it.
But you can not control depression or other biological illnesses by will-power.

Just my 2 cents.......

[krazibean]

yea, you can't control that you have depression, but you can control if you get better, how you deal with the depression, etc. right?

Yes and No.

For example. I was once so depressed, but I did everything that my p-doc and T said, including being hospitalized. That depression hung around for 8 months....

So, yes, I did make efforts to control changing the illness, but I could not change the illness.

I think this leads to blaming the sick person. Do we blame diabetics when they go blind because they did not do the best to control their blood sugars? No, we usually offer them sympathy and empathy.

We can control our behaviors, but that does not mean our bodies are going to biologically respond appropiately.

?

[krazibean]

right, i mean if we do all we can and we are still depressed thats different. But i think the therapist in this article made it sound like if your depressed your doomed for life and all you can do is say poor poor me and theres nothing you can do to change it. She also made it sound like its the therapists job to cure depression when really, my therapist says her job is to help me help myself because I'm the only one that can cure myself.

Hmmm.....

..I think that you can cure yourself of negative thoughts and behaviors that might lead to preventing the illness of depression from getting better, BUT I don't think you can cure yourself of the illness.

It is a subtle difference, but an important one I think.

Hopefully your T's job is to help you learn to stop those thoughts and behaviors, but her job can't be to teach you to stop the biological illness.

??

You can control how you perceive the world around you, but I don't believe you can completely control your emotions. I agree with the therapist's example. A depressed person simply can not say "feel better" and it happens.

[sunrise]

On the whole, I agree with this response, although I wouldn't have emphasized the "intelligent and educated people" angle so much. I don't think I can control the way I feel. My problem all my life has been trying to ignore the way I feel and pretend I was OK when I was not. That suppression of feeling is not healthy and can even cause or add to depression. Basically, I think this response is refuting the CBT approach of trying to change one's feelings by changing one's thoughts. This symptom-based therapy doesn't work for everyone, and yes, I agree with the writer, there is a piece to it that is insulting. I think that psychotherapy that addresses solving the root causes of depression, such as difficult, stressful, and entrenched life events and problems, can result in a stabler and deeper "cure" than CBT. At least for me it has.

[krazibean]

I'm so confused...

[sunrise]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
krazibean said:
But i think the therapist in this article made it sound like if your depressed your doomed for life and all you can do is say poor poor me and theres nothing you can do to change it.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">I did not interpret the article this way at all. I just thought she was saying that the changing/controlling your thoughts/feelings approach does not work, not that there are not other approaches to dealing with depression that may be helpful.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
I'm so confused...

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">Why? Not everyone is going to agree on that article and not everyone is going to agree with your T. And it's OK if you have your own opinion of that article based on your own experience of depression.

[Dinah]

I tend to agree.

Certainly I'm in favor of trying to think about things in a way that doesn't sustain my worst moods, or in ways that don't make my life worse. I try to interpret things generously, not hold grudges, etc.

But that doesn't always change how I feel. I am always saying "I know (insert logical and proper thought here), but I still feel (insert what I'm feeling here)."

I also notice that even if I choose to be amused rather than angry, or calm rather than upset, eventually it catches up with me. I can sustain it for a while, but eventually it causes a huge meltdown if the underlying stresses continue. And the meltdown is likely worse because I haven't acknowledged the magnitude of the stress that was building.

So I guess I believe that people can try to think in ways that minimizes distress and doesn't create additional problems in life. But that that doesn't necessarily make a person feel better. It might vary a lot from person to person, too. Depending on the underlying causes of their depression.

Haven't the latest DBT outcome studies concluded that while the clients function better, they don't necessarily feel better in a subjective sense?

Plus, of course, the biological factors. Mood disorders are tricky in that they change the very way a person thinks.

Not that I'm in any way opposed to good mental hygiene, or trying to change the way I think about things. Therapy definitely helps me with all of that. For me, at least, I don't think there's a magic bullet. But adding together a lot of things that are helpful increases my chances of feeling well for longer periods of time, and minimizing the amount of times I feel horrible.

[Kiya]

Krazybean - My MD is a specialist in Adrenal Faticge (a thing most MD's won't look for and she was my last hope when I found her after 5 dr.s) She tested my *brain chemistry* and saw that I was severely short in crucial areas; melatonin, seratonin, neurotransmitters.. the works.
My former t had told me the same thing - i choose how i am feeling. Well, my MD said flat out "You cannot possibly feel happy or good, or even make good choices with levels as low as these!!" She started me on *suppliments* specially to raise all those levels. they are suppose to be in the 160s-180s.... mine were between 20-40. My MD actually clucked her tongue when she saw the results!! Evidently any dr can learn to work with the supplement company "NeuroScience" who provides the testing and the neurotransmitter support. My MD is keeping me off anti-depressants and bulding up my adrenal health in this manner.
SInce I started those, first my levels got up into the 60's and I noticed a few good days. Md said "You're gonna feel like a new woman when we get those into the 100s." I wrote my t and told her "HA!" T had told me she felt i *couldn't DEAL with being happy!!" How rude!!
Now days, I am actually seeing a difference in my own cognitive decision making skills! I was so impressed with myself on the things I thought! I felt like the Scarecrow with a new Brain! Then realized that these are the decisions most "normal" people make every day. I was finally reaching those leves. I am still lower than i need to be, but it takes time, and I am getting there.
Doesn't it make sense that our choices are *based* on our brain chemistry? And if that's out of whack, how can we possibly choose anything?

[sassypants]

Wow ! What an amazing post. I never thought to have the
adrenal glands checked out. I am currently in therapy and
I feel disappointed with the comments by my T.

She has told me that I can control my moods,like not to feel
depressed and this makes no sense to me.
I would not be depressed if I could stop it. It is not a choice I made. Who in the world wants to feel this way if they can help it?I have been on so many drugs, that I am losing my patience.

Thank you very much for the insight. :

[krazibean]

i agree with you all. but to be devils advocate, aka my T, i think she means that you control if you get better. like for kiya, if you had resisted and refused to take the medication, thats your choice, and you would be choosing to stay depressed. but because you chose to get yourself help and get the physical stuff figured out, then that means you chose health. I think my T is saying you may not be able to control some things (physical) but you can control how you deal/handle/react to things. that its your choice to seek help and choose heath. make sense? i'm just trying to see my t's point of view

[Kiya]

Nope - i don't get it. I think it is the new fad to put pressure on metaphysics, mind over matter, law of attraction, "The Secret"... etc. and I believed all that stuff. I grew up learning all that, I've had 3 t's preach all that to me, one t made me watch "The Secret". And I totally get all that. But it wasn't working - because the synapses in my brain couldn't do their jobs. I could take all the meds i wanted and it wouldn't have changed.
I'm not taking meds now - I'm taking suppliments that boost the neurotransmitters in my brain; boosting serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine levels which is actually giving me a new ability to make different cognitive choices than I have ever be able to before.
That's why we ( in the mental health system) fall in to ruts, and go round and round on the same darn circut and then nothing ever changes.
Nothing can change when the *brain* doesn't change. Drugs only block certain things. These nrosciences suppliments actually rebuild the neurotransmitters and allow them to function properly.
It's pretty dang cool.

[pachyderm]

> Nothing can change when the *brain* doesn't change.

Experience changes the brain. Literally. Things "learned" can be relearned (brain changes both times). Relearning does not make the original learning go away, but it can add to and alter any conclusions you may have reached.

Often not easy, though, depending on what was learned and how it was learned.

[ECHOES]

If we are in control, why do we not then "make" ourselves feel delirously ecstatically joyful 24/7?

[Kiya]

i think that yes, we are at choice to an extent - but we are limited by the range of choices we already know. if experience and our own patterns dictate that our choices become our prisons, then we may need more than talk therapy or the average drug on the market to get us into new choices.
I think it is great that someone out there can understand that our bodies are completely tied to our mental state, which is tied to our physical environment. All things have to move together into balance to affect change. I'd been in therapy for 4 years before meeting this MD who is now radically affecting positive change on my life.
I totally know the changes i need to make - think positive, move out of this abusive locale, get my self interested in life, get in a career i actually want.... I've known all that for 10 years. but unable to do anything about it. and i didn't know why.
Now i know why and have better resourses to create change because my minds finally getting in the game, thanks to the help of those boosters.

[Merlin]

It would be really interesting to see your MD Kiya.

[Kiya]

=) She's SOOOOOOOO totally awesome - she's the only MD I've met that I ever trusted.