Managing Depression with Positive Psychology

August 25, 2021 Mike MacConnell

Depression is a scary word. Not long ago it sounded worse, like a crippling illness that came with a life sentence. For extreme cases that can still be how it is, but thanks to the revolution in mental health known as Positive Psychology, for most of us that time has passed. The fear is unfounded.

When I recognized I was living with depression I was shocked and horrified. I was functioning at home and work, only without vital energy or a glimmer of joy. I imagined recovery would require a regimen of medications along with years of complicated psycho-analysis, uncovering dark, subconscious truths that lay hidden beneath my awareness. Otherwise, there was no hope of recovery. Or so I imagined.

The path back to life was much easier than that. In fact, it was free of charge and relatively quick. With a little coaching, I was able to do it myself, without medication or psychiatry. First, I found hope in a bestseller on Positive Psychology called Feeling Good, in which Dr. David Burns presents the basic insight that, in the vast majority of cases, depression is the result of faulty thinking. Feeling Good link Negative thinking causes negative emotion. If your internal monologue is on a loop repeating “I am unworthy” and “the world is hopeless” then it’s likely you’re depressed.

To resolve depression, just change how you’re thinking. Challenge the toxic thoughts that cause the negative feelings. It isn’t complicated. No need to spend a decade (and a fortune) uncovering unconscious motives or childhood trauma. Instead, pay attention to the thoughts you are thinking, right here, right now. If they are persistently negative then challenge them, put them to the test, look for counter-arguments. “Can I be certain that I’m so unworthy? Is the tale of woe I’m telling myself necessarily true? Are there any counter-examples? Is there evidence that some world problems are getting better?”. Make an active practice of seeking evidence suggesting you and the world ARE worthwhile.

Next, activate yourself physically and socially. Burn’s insistence on overall well-being led me first to relaxation classes and then to a daily practice of yoga. I also began connecting with old friends I had been “too tired” or “too busy” to see. By deliberately moving my thoughts and body in new directions I was able to recover my life. It only took a few months. I haven’t looked back since.

Positive Psychology is interested in practical, common-sense approaches to what makes life most worth living. It’s most well-known application, the one that worked for me, is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, or CBT. As my personal story demonstrates, CBT has become popular for one single reason. It works. Research consistently shows that recovery from depression using CBT (especially in combination with mindfulness practice and physical activity) far surpasses earlier, more complex forms of psychotherapy. Positive Psychology link

Most empowering of all: you can do it on your own by moving your body and mind in more positive directions.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike MacConnell, founder of Reflective Mediation, is an accredited family mediator, conflict coach, educator and author. He is the highest-ranked mediator on Google in the greater Toronto area, with over 180 5-star reviews. To book your free consultation click here.

Learning to Look On The Bright Side

February 24, 2021 Mike MacConnell

Last month’s blog looked at “learned helplessness”, a kind of paralysis which can take over a person’s life in response to overwhelming stress. Martin Seligman, the researcher who first named the condition noted its association with pessimism along with a high risk for PTSD and depression.

He used 3 Ps to explain why people give up after being knocked about by life. They come to believe:

1. Adversity will always occur (is Permanent);

2. It will occur in all areas of life (is Pervasive) and

3. They are powerless to change it (is Personal).

This month, the good news. Martin Seligman, who coined the term “learned helplessness” also came up with the concept of “learned optimism”.

Really? Can optimism be learned?

Most mothers will tell you their children were born with either a cheery or fragile disposition. To some extent those traits are hardwired. Yet despite inborn temperament, the evidence is conclusive. Humans have the capacity, with effort, to adjust their disposition and enhance their own well-being. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_optimism

Seligman’s model presents a 5-step ABCDE sequence. Here’s how it might work in the case of Bridget, who I introduced last month. A single parent, she was overwhelmed with having to work, manage the house and monitor her children’s schooling in a pandemic

1. Adversity: she’s feeling stuck and overwhelmed, yet hasn’t reached out to her mother or best friend.

2. Belief: she predicts her mother and best friend will give unwanted advice and react impatiently to her complaints. She fears they don’t really care about her.

3. Consequence: the result of these negative beliefs is that she remains isolated, unheard and lonely and feels powerless to help herself.

Steps A, B & C present the dilemma. Points D & E outline what Bridget can do to overcome her feeling of helplessness.

4. Dispute: She challenges her assumptions, asking herself how certain she can be that they’ll respond the way she fears. She brings to times her mother and friend were attentive and helpful. She realizes she can’t really know how they will respond if she calls.

5. Energization: she begins to feel hopeful, that it may be worth reaching out. She notices that she’s still nervous. She’s vulnerable. It will take courage to phone – to share her pain and uncertainty. Only one way to find out - she picks up the phone.

The goal isn’t a quick fix, but to help empower Bridget to think about the situation differently. She can more energetically assess her options and thereby act to improve her mental health.

In his bestselling book Learned Optimism, Seligman suggests that people suffering from learned helplessness pay attention to the underlying thoughts that influence their emotions and behaviours and actively challenge their own hasty conclusions. His technique is a variation of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

Seligman is NOT claiming we should always be optimistic. He recommends Balanced optimism, deciding NOT to choose an optimistic prediction if the risk of being wrong would be catastrophic. For example, Bridget might consider quitting her job on the optimistic prediction of winning the lottery. If the prediction is wrong, she could end up homeless, so optimism wouldn’t be wise. With respect to calling her mother or friend, however, the risk of being wrong would be no greater than a difficult conversation. It therefore makes sense to make the call.

Next month’s blog looks at “The Upside of Stress” by Kelly McGonigal. Her research concludes that meaning and purpose are enhanced by changing your relationship to stress – by choosing to make discomfort meaningful rather than trying to avoid it – and provides tips on how doing so can empower you to be strengthened and enriched by stress.

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When Misfortune Leaves You Paralyzed: The Dilemma of “Learned Helplessness”

January 26, 2021 Aleksandra Ania

Bridget is a single mother, suffering in the midst of the pandemic. She feels overwhelmed by the weight of homeschooling her children while working from home at half her former wages. In addition to the necessities of shopping, cooking, cleaning and caregiving, she can’t stop thinking of how she dropped out of college, about the great job she lost, and how her marriage fell apart. After a sleepless night, her life seems to her like a litany of failures with no way out of the gloom. She worries she’s reached the breaking point, yet can’t muster the motivation to call her mother or best friend for support. She imagines they’re tired of her complaints and will just offer unwanted advice. She emails her ex to pick up the kids and crawls back under the covers, trapped and alone.

Many of us have felt something akin to Bridget’s emotional paralysis. You may have experienced a sense of futility that temporarily sapped your motivation. Often it resolves on its own. However, for some, “learned helplessness” becomes a permanent frame of mind, often associated with PTSD and clinical depression. People stuck in a situation, unable to change tracks.

The Oxford dictionary defines “learned helplessness” as “a condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed and becomes unable or unwilling to avoid subsequent encounters, even if they are escapable”. The term was coined by Martin Seligman in 1967 after observing the behavior of dogs who lacked the initiative to escape following repeated exposure to electrical shock, despite being offered the opportunity.

Some of my clients express feeling this way in their family or work life. These are intelligent, well-intentioned individuals who may have felt overwhelmed by divorce, health issues, job-loss or stress at work. They are unable to visualize steps to improve their situation. There is no issue of blame here. Given a world in which external forces impose relentless, unwanted pressures beyond their control, the temptation to believe their situation to be hopeless is entirely understandable. But the sense of hopelessness mires them deeper. It blinds them from seeing the one thing they can control, which is their response.

“Learned optimism” is the answer, and Seligman has emerged as a world expert in the field. Along with other positive psychologists such as Kelly McGonigal, (see her TED talk and book: The Upside of Stress) a powerful movement has emerged making a convincing case that learned helplessness can be overcome, and that an attitude of balanced, realistic optimism can, with effort, be acquired.

Bridget may not be able to transform the circumstances that gave rise to her distress, but she can energize and transform her response. By challenging her automatic thoughts, by expressing her needs in honest, vulnerable conversations and by connecting with others she can shift the lens through which she sees herself and her world.

In next month’s blog I’ll present a more detailed description of practical steps to overcome learned helplessness, and not only to survive, but to grow stronger in response to unwanted stress.

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Focusing On Fixing Problems Puts Romance At Risk

December 4, 2019 Mike MacConnell

Our brains are Velcro for negative thoughts, Teflon for positive. Evolution has wired us that way. Nightly news producers know it, which is why, out of a million commuters, you only hear about the ones who don’t get home safely. Our city functions as a miracle of co-ordinated social and economic activity but we hear about the cases of violence.

There’s a good evolutionary reason for our predisposition to focus on problems. Our prehistoric ancestors needed to think ahead, to worry about the coming winter, rival tribes or the next hunt. They had to sharpen their spears and their wits. Those who paid too much attention to the bright side may not have survived to pass along their genes.

In modern times (at least in the developed world) our issues aren’t about basic survival. Attention to problems can motivates us to improve our lives, when done in small doses. But a preoccupation with your problems can trigger the “fight-or-flight” reaction, which prepares your body for action by shutting down the creative, problem-solving region of your brain.

Dwelling on the negative is riskiest in intimate relationships. When you zero in on the part of your love life that is not going well, you may lose sight of your many blessings. As a family mediator I often work with spouses whose story of their past is dominated by what went wrong. Conflict saturates their memory, poisoning their appreciation for anything that remains positive.

Those painful events DID occur. He really WAS hurt by her inattention. She really IS wounded by his critical comments, and those issues deserve attention. But they aren’t the whole story. Problem-solving often loses sight of the positive qualities you offer one another. Whether your goal is to heal or end your relationship, you’ll both benefit by shifting attention from what’s broken to what works.

Whether you’re reflecting on the city, or your love life, you will be at your best with a buoyant appreciation for what’s going well. The realist sees the big picture. Not just the problems.

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