Understanding the Depressions

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Wyn Bramley. Understanding the Depressions

Understanding the Depressions

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

POST SCRIPT

Отрывок из книги

A Companion for Sufferers, Relatives and Counsellors

Wyn Bramley

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There are many physical manifestations of the Depressions, but they usually assert themselves first as a psychological disruption. The individual’s self-damning attitudes to, and negative judgements of, their own person are out of character. (It has to be admitted though, that some normally gloomy characters become Depressed and no one notices, due to the lack of contrast between their well mood and their gradually disordered one.) There is usually a pervasive aura of sadness and/or defeatism about the individual, or less commonly they emanate a smouldering rage against a cruel world. Typically the episode will have a distinct beginning, middle and end, and each phase may be fast or slow. Distorted, disproportionate, overly pessimistic beliefs and self-critical judgements flow from the low mood, gaining force or dissipating according to whether the episode is progressing or receding. All the same, recovery can be far from linear and tidy: two steps forward, one step back, is more common. In assessing any type of Depressive episode – what to do about it, when and how – the idea of time, the concept of ebb and flow, is of central importance.

In any helping role one needs and wants the collaboration of the sufferer. But if the mind that is out of order hates its own existence, can’t believe in the possibility of healing, will not or cannot ally with the helper, what can the helper do? Hard though it will prove, maybe they can learn how to wait and discreetly watch, keep the person safe, fed and watered, while trusting that a better time will come, when they will be allowed in.

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