Street roots., January 19, 2018, Page 5, Image 5

Street Roots • Jan. 19-25, 2018
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Page 5
DEPRESSION, from page 4
introduced to chemical antidepressants, in
Now, it’s really important to say that’s not Cambodia. He was explaining it to the
doctors there, because they didn’t know
100 percent. My book is not an argument
what they were. And the doctors said, “Oh,
against chemical antidepressants. And when
we don’t need antidepressants. We’ve
it comes to chemical antidepressants, I
already got antidepressants.” And Derek
really have only two things to say;
said, “What do you mean?” So they told him
One is, they can’t continue to be the only
a story.
thing on the menu, because for most
There was a farmer who worked in the
people, they’re not working. That’s no
rice fields, and one day he stood on a
disrespect to anyone for whom it is working,
landmine and got his leg blown off. After
but they are a small minority.
that, they gave him an artificial limb and he
Secondly, the story we’re told about these
went back to work in the rice fields, but it
antidepressants is not true. That depression
was really painful to work in water when
is caused by a chemical imbalance and
you’ve got an artificial limb. He was
therefore you need to fix the chemical
obviously in thè same place where he’d
imbalance - that claim, it astonished me,
gotten blown up - he was
there is no scientific
traumatized, he just cried all
evidence for that.
day and didn’t want to get out of
Professor Andrew Skull
bed. He was obviously
at Princeton University says "Tbere a « plenty
depressed.
it is “deeply misleading and of people who
The doctors said, “Well, we
unscientific” to claim that
iaaw everything
gave him an antidepressant.” |
depression is caused by low
yea cob M possibly Derek said, “What do you
serotonin. Dr. David Healy,
mean?” They said, “We went
want but are s till
who is the main British
and sat with him, we listened to
depressed,
But
they
expert on this, said to me,
why he was sad, we saw that it
you can’t even say that
h a w everything
made sense, and so we figured
theory has been discredited yea eoiild pos­
if wé bought him a cow and he
because there was never a
sibly want by the
became a dairy farmer, he
time when it was credited.
Wouldn’t be in the fields all the
standards of the
There was never a time
day, he wouldn’t be so upset, so
eallBre^ which has
when more than half the
we bought him. a cow, and
people in'the field believed mistahea what
within a few weeks he stopped
it - that was basically a -
ham aii beings
crying all the time, and now
claim put about by the drug re a lly need."
he’s fine.” They said to Derek,
company PRs.
jo h a n n w
l “So you see, doctor, that cow
A U T H O R O F “ LO ST
was an antidepressant.”
E m ily G reen: I was
C ,O U M E C T !O U S “ >
-, „Now ifyou’ve been raised,
hoping that you could talk a -
little bit about what you
discovered about all o f the
w ith th e w ay th a t w e ’v e b e e n
taught to think about
depression, which is that it’s
just a chemical malfunction in
your brain, now that sounds like a joke,
right? But when you understand this deeper
way of thinking about depression, th at it’s
actually a response to things happening in
our lives, it makes perfect sense. The vast
majority, if not all, of depressed people are
depressed for perfectly understandable
reasons - there are things happening to
them that are making them depressed and
anxious. And the core of the solution is not
to try and muffle the symptoms, but to
actually deal with why they feel so bad in
the first place, by helping them to change
their lives. ,
bikes?”
Meredith and her husband, Josh, quit
their jobs.
They decided to set up their own bike
store, but they didn’t want to run it in the
old way. What they did was run it as a
democratic cooperative. They made all the
decisions for the company together; they
shared out the good tasks and the bad tasks;
they shared all the profits. They had
collective control.
What was interesting to me about
Baltimore Bicycle Works was how quickly
their depression and anxiety had gone away.
It’s not like they quit their jobs fixing bikes
and went to teach surfing in the Florida
Keys. They fixed bikes before, and they fix
bikes now. What changed was the aspect of
work that makes people depressed, which is
the lack of control.
E.G.: We all know people who have not
suffered a major trauma, who have a nice
house; who have a loving family, they seem to
have it all - but they have depression. How do
you explain that?
STO^ÈTÿRÔpT^AGE^KÇ^Q
A sign on Portland’s Burnside Bridge is part
o f a suicide prevention effort.- Suicidéis the
leading cause o f death among Oregonians
ages 10 to 24. According to a WalletHub
study published last year, Portland has one o f
the highest rates o f depression in the nation.
J.H.: If you read a lot of the feminist
books from the ’60s, there’s a really
common thing that they say, which is:
Women would go to their doctor, they’d say
to their doctor, “There is something wrong
with my nerves because I’ve got everything
a woman could possibly w ant I’ve got a nice
husband who doesn’t beat me, I’ve got a car,
I’ve got two children, and yet I feel terrible.”
And doctors would say, “Oh, you’re right ”
and give them Valium or whatever.
Now, if we could go back in time and talk
to those women, we’d say, “You’ve got
e v er y th in g a w om an cou ld p o ssib ly w ant, by
the sta n d a rd s o f the culture, bu t th e stan d ard s
of the culture are just wrong. You actually
research - those peer-reviewed
need much more than this culture is
studies - that serves as evidence that chemical
offering you. You need purpose, and you
antidepressants work. What did you learn?
need to feel you have autonomy and
meaning, and you need equality.”
J.H.: We all know that when you take
I think that’s similar to what’s happening
Michael Marmot, who did the kind of
selfies, you take 29 pictures and you look
now. There are plenty of people who have
definitive
research
on
this
-
what
he
found
like you’ve got a double chin or something,
everything you could possibly want but are
is the less control you have over your work,
and you throw away those 29, and then the
still depressed. But they have everything
the
more
likely
you
are
to
become
30th one where you look good, you use that
you could possibly want by the standards of
depressed. Human beings have an innate
as your Tinder profile picture.
the culture, which has mistaken what human
need to feel that what they’re doing has
Basically a very similar thing has
beings really need.
meaning
and
purpose.
.And
if
you’re
ju
s
t'
happened with the research in
For thousands of years, philosophers haye
controlled all the time, so you don’t have
antidepressants. What happened is the drug
said, “If you think life is about getting money
any
autonomy,
you
can’t
invest
what
you’re
companies only published the results where
and status and showing off, you’re not going
doing with meaning, and you will feel like
they looked good.
to be very happy.” But weirdly, no one had
shit. And this has been shown very clearly.
For example, there was one study where
actually scientifically investigated this until
Now,
to
go
back
to
the
story
about
the
they studied over 250 people, and they only
this guy, Tim Kasser at Illinois State
E.G.: As you went through the phase of
cow, again, that opens up a very different
published the results of 27 of them - who
University, and basically what he shows is
your research where you were looking at the
way
of
thinking
about
antidepressants.
That
happened to be the 27 for whom the
that there are two ways we can motivate
nine common causes of depression, was there
means
that
if
someone
is
in
a
controlled
antidepressants worked. So, we’ve ended up
ourselves as human beings.
anything that you found particularly
workplace, they’re not depressed because
with a very distorted scientific picture.
If you play the piano in the morning just
surprising?
|
something
has
gone
wrong
inside
their
What happens when you look at the real
because you love playing the piano and it
brain; they’re depressed because
J.H.: There was this really interesting
evidence, this was discovered by professor
gives you joy, that’s an intrinsic motivation -
something’s gone wrong in the world, and
study by Gallup about people’s attitudes
Irving Kirsch, is that while there are some
you’re doing it not because you want to get
the way the world works.
toward their work, and what it found was 13
people who get some relief from these
something out of it, but just because you s
I went to Baltimore to see an experiment
percent love our work; we enjoy it and look
drugs, they are a small minority of the
love the act itself. -
in
a
different
way
of
doing
this,
and
there
forward
to
it.
And
63
percent
of
people
are
people who are using the drugs.
If you play the piano in a dive bar that you
was
this
woman
called
Meredith
Mitchell
what they called “sleepwalking through
We’ve been told that depression is just
hate, to pay the rent, or to impress a man to
who used to go to bed every Sunday night
work.” They neither like it nor hate it. And
something that happens in cu r heads. It’s a
have sex with you or to please your parents,
just feeling sick with anxiety. She dreaded
24 percent of people hate their work - hate
malfunction in our skull, in our brain, and
that’s an extrinsic reason for .doing it. You’re
the week ahead. She worked in an office job.
it, dread it, fear it.
what I learned was actually that’s not true.
not doing it because you love it, you’re doing
It wasn’t the worst office job in the world,
It’s kind of incredible: 87 percent of
Not entirely, but overwhelmingly, depression
it to get something out of it
but
she
just
couldn’t
believe
that
this
was
people don’t like the thing they’re doing
is a response to the way we’re living today.
It turns out, the more you are driven by
going to be the next 40 years of her life.
most of the time, and you’re almost twice as
That forces us to think about
extrinsic motives, the more likely you are to
Her
husband,
Josh,
had
worked
in
bike
likely
to
hate
your
work
as
love
your
work.
antidepressants in a very different way. One
become depressed and anxious, the more
And so I began to wonder: Could there be stores in Baltimore since he was a teenager,
person that really helped me to understand
you will feel your life is inauthentic.
and
that’s
very
controlled
work,
and
it’s
very
some
connection
between
this
and
this was a psychiatrist called Dr. Derek
We have a culture which is constantly
depression? And it turns out there is a.lot of insecure work. One day Josh and his
Summerfield.
colleague thought, “What does our boss
evidence for this.
He was in Cambodia in the early part of
See DEPRESSION, page 7
actually do all day while we fix all the
An Australian social scientist called
this century, when they were first