[Neurons] 2017 Neurons #55 -- Depression: It's About the Thinking

Sun Dec 10 20:04:52 EST 2017

From: L. Michael Hall

2017 Neurons #55

December 11, 2017

This Thing Called "Depression" #2

DEPRESSION:

IT'S ABOUT THE THINKING

Given that a lot of things are called "depression," which are not clinically
depression (Neurons #53), how can you tell?  A good way to begin is to use
the work of Dr. David D. Burns and his classic, Feeling Good: The New Mood
Therapy (1980).   What Burns did in that book was to make exceptionally
practical the theoretic work of Dr. Aaron T. Beck one of the founders of the
cognitive psychotherapy.  His thesis was simple:

"When you are depressed, you are thinking in an illogical, negative manner
and you inadvertently act in a self-defeating way.  Yet you can train
yourself to straighten your twisted thought patterns." (Burn, p. 3)

He also utilized the Beck Depression Inventory  (page 20-21), a list of 21
items to help with a basic  diagnosis.  For decades this  Cognitive
Psychology approach has been the most successful approach regarding
depression and anxiety.  Immediately following the inventory is chapter 3,
You Feel the Way You Think, and a list of 10 Cognitive Distortions. That's
because the more cognitive distortions one uses in thinking to understand
oneself, others, and the world, the more misery you create for yourself, and
the more likely you are to create depression.

What are these cognitive distortions that are so destructive and that create
the dysfunctional state of depression?  The following distortions are all
expressions of uncritical thinking: 

All-or-Nothing thinking, over-generalization, negative mental filter,
disqualifying the positive (discounting), jumping to conclusions
(mind-reading), magnification and minimization (distortion), emotional
reasoning, using "should" statements (demanding), labeling (confusing map
and territory), and personalizing.

Once you have looked at the signs of depression, you can then use the NLP
Communication Model and ask a lot of probing questions.  Begin with modeling
questions in order to explore the experience itself, what it entails, what
the person is referring to, and how he is creating his experience.

           How do you know to call what you're feeling depression?

           How do you create this state?  What is your internal strategy?

           What's playing on the theater of your mind- what images, sounds,
sensations?

           What are the qualities of the cinematic features of this movie?

           What is the triggering event to which you are responding? 

           When did the depression start?  When is it worse?  When is it
better?

           What is it like on the inside to be or feel "depressed?"

           What are you pushing down in your experience of depression?

"Every bad feeling you have is the result of your distorted negaitve
thinking, illogical pessimistic attitudes play the central role in the
development and continuation of all your symptoms.  Intense negativ e
thinking always accompanies a depressive episode.   ...  The first major key
to understanding your moods: your emotions result entirely from the way you
look at things.  It is an obvious neurological fact that before you can
experience any event, you must process it with your mind and give it
meaning. (Burns, 1980, p. 29).

"When you are depressed, you possess the remarkable ability to believe, and
to get the people around you to believe, things which have no basis in
reality.   The Cognitive Distortions." (p. 31-41).

These questions help us to understand many of the variables within the
experience and how any given person creates and maintains a depressed state.
Yet there's more to it.  Using the Meta-States Model, we ask additional
questions-meta-questions- that allow us to explore the matrix of frames as
meta-states that construct and hold the depression in place.

           What meanings are you giving to the triggering event that leads
you to not only feel appropriately sad, but to push down your energies?

           Do you like feeling depressed?

           What are some of the positive values and benefits that you get
from this experience?

           What does it mean to you that you're experiencing depression?

           How do you feel or think about this state?

           What are the thinking patterns that drive or amplify or support
this state?

           What do you believe about X to which you are responding with
depression?

In the first case, NLP enables us to recognize that the depressive person is
running a depressive movie and passively experiencing the movie as it drones
on and on.  In the second, Meta-States enables us to recognize the
difference between sadness and depression.  Sadness is a primary state
emotion, a feeling of sadness, which when appropriate due to some loss, is
healing and appropriate.  But sadness about our sadness might create the
more complex state of depression.  Yet there are other configurations.

Anger at self for being imperfect might create depression.  Freud said
depression was "anger turned inward."

Intolerance of disappointment might be another structure for feeling
depressed.

Rejection of self for failing at a business, relationship, or whatever.

Now for the good news.  Sadness is normal, if discouragement is normal, if
other so-called "negative" emotions are normal, they are just human
emotions.  And if appropriate to the context and to one's mental model, then
they help us deal with reality, make adjustments, and get back on track.
Depression, however, is not normal.  It is a misuse of your powers-
especially your cognitive and emotional powers and it solves nothing.  And
there's good news about that.  After all, if you created that experience,
you can uncreate it.  You can identify what you are doing to create it and
learn a better way.  You can meta-state things in a much more productive
way:

              Acceptance of being fallible and making mistakes.

              Curiously learning about the mistakes and correcting them.

              Forgiving yourself and releasing the past so you can
resiliently move forward. 

Neuro-Semantic News

·       NSTT --- will be held July 1-15, 2018

·       Write for the Brochures if you are interested.

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

               Neuro-Semantics Executive Director 

               Neuro-Semantics International

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO. 81520 USA                             

               1 970-523-7877 

                    Dr. Hall's email:
<mailto:meta at acsol.net\hich\af31506\dbch\af31505\loch\f31506> meta at acsol.net

    ISNS new logo

What is Neuro-Semantic NLP?

Neurons:  Get your free subscription to the weekly International \Post on
Neuro-Semantics by Dr. L. Michael Hall. Subscribe at:
wwww.neurosemantics.com

    Coaching: For world-class Coach Training - The Meta-Coaching System,
<http://www.neurosemantics.com/metacoaching>
www.neurosemantics.com/metacoaching   Meta-Coach Reflections sent every
Wednesday to the group of Licensed Meta-Coaches.
<http://www.metacoachfoundation.org> www.metacoachfoundation.org  

Self-Actualization: Neuro-Semantics launched the New Human Potential
Movement in 2007, for information about this, see
<http://www.self-actualizing.org/> www.self-actualizing.org  

NSP --- Neuro-Semantic Publications: Order books from Neuro-Semantic
website,  <http://www.neurosemantics.com/> www.neurosemantics.com  click on
Products and Services and then the Catalogue of books.  Order via paypal.  

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist8.pair.net/pipermail/neurons/attachments/20171210/ef44b9f1/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 10627 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://pairlist8.pair.net/pipermail/neurons/attachments/20171210/ef44b9f1/attachment-0001.jpg>