Christmas, winter, darkness, stress and depression

How does Cognitive Therapy Work?

Cognitive Therapy is based on the early work of Martin Seligman, who in 1967 was researching human depression. Seligman proposed that human beings and animals show symptoms of depression because they have ‘learned’ to believe that their situation is helpless or that there is nothing that they can do to avoid a bad situation. His experiments involved dogs. The dogs were left in a room, where through the floor they could be zapped with an uncomfortable electric shock. The room was divided in half by a low wall which the dogs could jump over – the floor on the other side of the wall could be charged with a shock or not. Some of Seligman’s experimental dogs were given the ability to escape the shock by jumping over the wall to the floor where the shock was not present, while others were shocked regardless of which side of the wall they were on.

What Seligman found was that many of the dogs which could not escape the shock showed an odd behaviour over time - they did nothing to avoid it: some of them even lay down on the floor which continued to shock them. It sounds awful – but the dog had ‘learned’ that nothing it did mattered – and so it gave up trying. Later, Seligman noted that these same dogs had many of the signs which in humans would be called depression.

Unlike Seligman’s poor dogs most of us do have options. Most importantly, we have some control over how we think and feel about the situation we find ourselves in.

Most importantly, situations exist outside of ourselves – our feelings, however, exist inside us. Cognitive Therapy attempts to break things down so that we can more clearly understand how we interpret then feel and react to events outside of ourselves.

The process is roughly to become more aware of each step – and to slow things down. in most cases, people are encouraged to keep a list or diary of each event -and each step.

• Firstly, something happens and we instantly feel our mood change. What thoughts race through our heads? How do we feel?
• Next, is it really as bad as we believe it is? What evidence do we have for our belief? What evidence is against our belief?
• Finally, can we see the original situation and our reaction differently when we’ve thought about it? Are there any other ways of looking at the situation? What are they?

The last step in the process is the most critical – it is where we may realise that we have options to the way in which we interpreted a situation. And instead of instantly reacting and perhaps feeling helpless, we’ve created an opportunity for ourselves to feel and do something else!

Other kinds of depression

Some people have other causes for their stress or depression which could be aggravated by the dark winter months or stresses during Christmas holidays. Cognitive Therapy is still widely used to help people who have long-term depression – and sometimes a doctor will prescribe anti-depressant drugs if they are needed.

In general, regular light exercise, a good balanced diet and regular sleep patterns help with stress and depression.

If you feel that you’re suffering from depression have a chat with a close friend and see your doctor. And don’t forget, depression is something that occurs physically in the brain and body. It can be treated.

For more information

National Institute of Mental Health - Depression
http://www.nimh.nih.gov

ThinkWell - Depression, Stress and Anxiety
http://www.thinkwell.co.uk