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Comment by warmfuzzykitten | Hacker News Reader

The comments here are depressing. People who are actually depressed are saying that the author is completely wrong about their depression, while others with no experience of depression are nitpicking at them with for what passes for logic on the internet.

The truth is, this PhD is not a psychiatrist, appears to have little clinical experience except whatever his "practice" has thrown his way, and, tellingly, refers to "clients" instead of "patients".

Some depression is situational, for sure, but this is not a deep observation or original thinking. The author is perhaps qualified to treat situational, temporary depression but cannot speak to clinical depression or depression that arises from mood disorders. To the extent he is in denial that these forms exist he is mistreating his "clients", and he shouldn't have the support of a bunch of smarty-pants nerds when he does it.

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His bio states: "Gregg Henriques, Ph.D., author of A New Unified Theory of Psychology, directs the Combined Clinical and School Psychology Doctoral Program at James Madison University. He is a licensed clinical psychologist..."

You're right that he isn't a psychiatrist, but he is a clinical psychologist. My educated layman's understanding is that this informs the more behaviorally/environmentally-driven view in his article, but because psychiatrists are trained from a traditional medicine/biology-focus, they are just as likely to be shifted towards the (also valid) biochemical explanations of depression (and the pharmaceutical treatments).

Indeed. Speaking as a sufferer of a serious depressive disorder, one well educated on the current medical science, I find these discussions incredibly frustrating.

Everyone brings out their anecdotes about how their aunt 'just got better through positive thinking, and you can too!' Or people just throw in whatever pop-psychology is currently in fashion. If we were having this conversation in the 1950s, all the smarty-pants would be talking about how depression is simply one of the many materialisations of conflicts between the concious and unconscious mind a la Freudian psychoanalytic theory.

Thankfully our methods of scientific inquiry (if you could categorise past efforts as such) have advanced significantly, and continue to do so. Our understanding of genomics suggests that mood disorders like unipolar and bipolar depression, and even psychotic disorders like schizophrenia, represent a spectrum of possibly thousands of different 'diseases', rather than the few 'categories' arbitrarily delineated in the DSM.

Advances in neuroscience and medical imaging allow us to directly observe how different symptoms are associated with inefficient information processing in different topographically localised brain regions. As we gather more data and the verisimilitude of our observations increases (as tends to occur with rigorous scientific study), we will be able to develop new treatments; be they psycho pharmacological (e.g. drugs) or physical (e.g. trans-cranial magnetic stimulation).

Yes, psychological therapy has its use, and has proven effective in certain situations. But it is just one tool in our ever-growing toolbox. To just blithely deem the rest of the tools to be useless and throw them out is to condemn people like me to a (short) life filled with suffering.

At the risk of sounding snarky or disrespectful, I can't fail to notice how often people suffering from depression become all passionate and fiery when discussing the cause of (their) depression.

No worries, I get what you're saying and it's something I've observed in myself. I'm usually very calm when discussing my depression with an open-minded person. And by open-minded I mean someone who just genuinely wants to know, asks the question and then listens to the answer.

The thing that gets me (and others) worked up is when people make sweeping generalisations regarding the causes and treatments of depression. No one likes being painted with a broad-brush, but it adds insult to injury when something that has caused me so much suffering is dismissed as trivial and easy to solve. I've spent more than a decade trying to treat my condition. It's not as simple or easy as most people think.

I guess it's also an issue of semantics: 'depression' is a very broad term that gets narrowed down in our minds, based on our own personal experiences. When I hear it, I tend to think of the more serious kind because that's what I've lived through: not leaving my house for two weeks, not showering, eating or sleeping for three days etc... I can understand why some others might think of it more like 'that time my goldfish died and I was sad': this is the fortunate extent of their experience of low moods.

Or maybe I just envy those without brain cooties...

From my own experience, I do trust anyone doing actual psychotherapy more (hence 'client') than a psychiatrist who see their patients for 10 minutes max. My therapist knows me so much better than any of the doctors. I've been enjoying going to my therapist, even though they force me to go there. Not so much the doctors they force me to go there (see http://jglauche.de/posts/misc/2016-01-30-discrimination-by-l... )

> People who are actually depressed are saying that the author is completely wrong about their depression, while others with no experience of depression are nitpicking at them with for what passes for logic on the internet.

There are a number of comments in here from people who say they were depressed for years and found some solution. People share their personal stories on the internet. It's an anonymous outlet. It is what we do. Readers can make up their own minds who to listen to. I don't hold any power over you with the words I write and nor do you over me.

"For clinical depression, you must have five or more of the following symptoms over a two-week period, most of the day, nearly every day" [1]

[1] http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/exp...

Couldn't agree with you more; out of the half dozen bouts of serious depression I've had in my life (I'm 32) only 1 of them had a series of direct triggers. The rest had no basis, and this is what makes them all the more discomforting; you know in your bones that there is simply nothing you can rectify in your life to make them go away.

I have a close family member that suffers from treatment-resistant rapid cycling depression. Basically, throughout the year, she cycles from hypomania to normal to depression. And there's no real/consistent trigger for these episodes. There's a history of bipolar disorder in the family, so clearly it's genetic.

Depression isn't the disease, it's a symptom.

Perhaps he should have clarified that the cause of the symptom might be situational, or it might be the result of another medical problem, e.g. brain malfunction/chemicals, genetics, nervous system disorder, cortisol issues, thyroid, hormone disorders etc., all shown to correlate with high levels of depression.

Most people who I've talked to who say it's a disease seem to believe so because they haven't identified the cause, and that brings them comfort.

But the meds, while necessary in some cases, should be avoided when possible, or weaned off quickly. They're bad news pushed by an industry that's making so much money from them, and the side effects are worse than what's being disclosed.

You are wrong. Many mental illnesses, over the past decade, have been proven to be diseases. They can be tested for. Currently there are a whole hosts of tests and treatments going through the phases.

Gregg and his ideas run parallel to a line of thought associated with The Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a group hell bent on denouncing mental illness as a disease. CCHR are/were a nonprofit organization established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist Thomas Szasz.

I can't believe people are still pushing these ideas, but this thread is rife with them. Please review your position, and make an effort to update yourself to the state of the art.

A syndrome is a collection of symptoms. A disease is a when a symptom or collection of symptoms can be traced back to a root cause.

Right on. Most people with actual depression are rarely able to visit a doctor, let alone survive the hoop jumping required to see a psychiatrist, yet alone get a referral for a psychologist, yet alone participate in a study. Frankly, I doubt there has ever been a study ever done on depression where the majority of participants actually had it. It is simply not realistic. You'd have more luck getting a paraplegic into the Olympics than a depressed person into anything more an appointment with a GP.

But every man and his dog has claimed they've had depression. It's like listening to a student who had to survive on ramen noodles for a few years, claim they know what starvation and poverty is like. Unbelievable.

Perhaps there are some who exaggerate. But I wonder how many people who never experienced life-altering depression would be interested in this thread, and how many people who did would follow it. My intuition says the second number is bigger and that generally speaking, most people here have had experience with either meds, therapy, or untreated life-altering depression.

Everyone likes to think they've had depression. It's the human struggle -- only it's not. It is the inability for neurons to recover from stress. Most people are able to recover. People with depression are not. Everyone who is a human being, who has gone through grief, may entertain the idea they've had depression, and may follow this thread, but very few both to pay attention to the state of the art. Instead people fall back to high school level psychology. Amazing how psychologists, too, are somehow exempt from paying attention to the state of neuroscience. Psychology is to neuroscience what philosophy is to physics. Only psychology has done a lot more damage. Nice to see that meta study after meta study is slow debunking all those years of phony studies. Meanwhile they wine and rage and refuse to go back to university, and instead take to the blogs and snake oil. It makes me sick.

> Everyone who is a human being, who has gone through grief, may entertain the idea they've had depression, and may follow this thread, but very few both to pay attention to the state of the art. Instead people fall back to high school level psychology. Amazing how psychologists, too, are somehow exempt from paying attention to the state of neuroscience.

I realize there are different levels of grief and depression.

I'm saying, there are people in this thread who were clinically diagnosed, dealt with depression for years, and have stories about that. Some had bad experiences with meds. We should not discard the experiences of these people simply because there are some people out there who mistakenly think they've experienced depression. The fact is, many of the people in this thread have. Patients don't need to understand all of neuroscience. They can still share their experiences.

> Meanwhile they wine and rage and refuse to go back to university, and instead take to the blogs and snake oil. It makes me sick.

There is recent research that suggests some meds can cause harmful manic behavior. This is not to be ignored either.

Other people have a right to share their opinion. You have the right to feel sick about it. One of these is under your control, perhaps with the help of a friend or therapist. The other is definitely out of your control.

Everyone has the right to share opinions.

Unfortunately the diagnosis of depression has been down to opinion also. Not an opinion informed by understanding, but by criteria of a disease no one yet fully understands, concocted by a bunch of cocaine snorting pompous bullshit artists (too far?).

Being diagnosed means a doctor listened to you describing a bunch of feelings and looked up a checklist, and matched some of those words you said to the checklist, and presto! Depression! Have a pill, be on your way.

And if you speak out against psychology then it's all explained by anti authoritarianism, and they put you in with the jews, and the gays, and the anarchists. Yes, homosexuality, and anti-authoritarianism were once recently on the checklist. You can't win. Complete gaslight tactics.

Please understand, I'm not having an argument here, I'm venting some rage, big time. Nothing personal. Some of us have been through the ringer by bastards like the writer of that article. Well meaning bastards. True nurse ratchett evil bastard ..... has aneurysm

> Please understand, I'm not having an argument here, I'm venting some rage, big time. Nothing personal.

Got it, no sweat.

> Some of us have been through the ringer by bastards like the writer of that article. Well meaning bastards. True nurse ratchett evil bastard ..... has aneurysm

I can understand if you've been mistreated by people who work in health. I don't see how the author is to blame or how you have come to feel he would treat you the same way. That's a mistake people commonly make, putting labels on people. All of our brains try to find patterns, so it's normal, but individual people are incredibly unique, and much more so than snowflakes. We may not all be good but we are all equally deserving of each other's respect.

That said, vent on! And feel free to lob any complaints my way about anything I've said. I'm not easily offended.

Gregg is in the business of classifying and tinkering with the way seriously mentally ill people are treated and pigeonholed. Advice being given by people who don't know the answers, especially when it comes to the suicidal, is incredibly irresponsible.

You know that feeling you get when something is broken and you see someone trying to fix it, and you know you can do better, and you want to push them out of the way and give your own advice, because you're sure yours is the best way? You just know it? That has been the MO of psychology. A long line of men and woman pricking up their fingers and saying, I've an idea, try this. On live, human subjects. Think I'm being overly dramatic? Look at his frikken tree of knowledge model. It's like this giant pantomime admission of this failure, but then goes on to say that his model -- unification of all the nonsense -- is the light in the darkness. His model is like the epitome of what all pseudo sciences attempt -- to first suspend disbelief and criticism with a cheeky wink towards an indirect admission of nonsense, then to about turn and pile themselves upon genuine physical sciences and claim, not only to be a part, but to be a vital piece of the puzzle. It's like some L. Ron Hubbard type shit. It's incredible really. The realm of psychology is full of people like him. It is theoretical anthropology at best. At worst it is malpractice.

> Look at his frikken tree of knowledge model

I know you're venting but you're a little off topic and hard to follow. It sounds like you have a bone to pick with this author. This sub-thread began with "warmfuzzykitten" lamenting the HN comments and now you're discussing other work by the author.

Venting is totally fine and useful. There are some other techniques for releasing frustration that are more effective. Meditation, for example, can teach you to cast aside thoughts on which you do not wish to dwell. The book Mindfulness in Plain English is a good introduction. I'm not telling you what to do, because it would be a waste of my energy. You'll make up your own mind regardless. I'm just sharing a strategy that's worked for me, alongside other things. That's what people do. We share stories, whether about good times or bad.

I know you're acting out your therapist fantasy, but you're being a little passive aggressive.

Meditation has been debunked. CBT has been debunked, Mindfulness has been debunked. Not only that, but meditation has been shown to be counterproductive and even dangerous. CBT is no better. It has become an industry of exploitation and snake oil. Recently two meta studies came out debunking the original CBT studies. Surprise surprise.

Yet psychologists keep going on and on about how it helps some people. Listen. If you are going through a rough patch and you try a bunch of things, the last fad you tried is always going to seem like it might have helped. If a million people are giving anal breathing a go, and half of them come out of their "episode" while practicing, they're all going to proclaim a cure. It's like this never ending loop, over and over of bullshit.

This is basic stuff. I can see you're feeding off my distress, so this is the last I'll say on the matter. Some people really are sick.

cue passive aggressive "I know you're"... "totally fine, and useful" creeping Jesus response

> This is basic stuff. I can see you're feeding off my distress, so this is the last I'll say on the matter. Some people really are sick.

> cue passive aggressive "I know you're"... "totally fine, and useful" creeping Jesus response

Here are the facts. You choose to only believe certain research, and you won't take the effort to spend 30 minutes sincerely trying something which is not dangerous or risky for you.

I never said neuroscience was unfounded. My point is, neuroscientists are not the only scientists capable of doing research and running through the scientific method. We should be praising whatever work follows that technique, not just neuroscience because it appears to be cutting edge. The scientific method has guided and helped judge aspects of all sciences for hundreds of years.

I try everything. No matter how stupid it seems, or what I think of it, because I'm desperate.

Lots of people out there feed of it and I have no choice but to try it because I'm a stuffed unit (presently I've been reduced to Ketamine. It is the only thing that has remotely come close to giving me temporary relief, and I must be reduced to criminality to use it -- because of some quacks who started selling shots (exploitation, again, sigh) genuine doctors can no longer use it off label, in my country). I would never recommend this to anyone because I'M NOT A FRIKKEN DOCTOR, YEAH? And neither are you, so stop with the irresponsible suggestions, because again, I will try anything.

Over the many years I've learned a few things about the people that feed off people like me, and people who feed off the dabblers and the grief stricken, the ashamed, all lumping us in together. All the above move on and the rest of us who can never recover get blamed for not having our lives in order. I've been very lucky with my life. If I didn't have certain privileges/luck I'd be dead like the rest of them, you don't have to contend with.

Neuroscience comes from a grounding in the physical sciences. Psychology abstracts from the top down. Psychology uses the scientific technique, but without the basic understanding required by all the other sciences. It is a culture of delusion and megalomania, a circle jerk of dunces, with the occasional valid observation, but never understanding. The hard sciences are taking those brave steps for one simple reason. They are grounded on small, proven facts. Psychology is grounded upon a quagmire of bullshit.

As psychology slowly loses its parasitic grip upon depression, I'm sure we'll see more of these death-knell articles, written by people for whom a career change is no longer practical. Soon, like Jung, all they'll have is their dreams and coloring books to remember them by. Sad relics of a backward era. Get out of it while you still can.

> Get out of it while you still can.

I'm not a psychologist, I'm a programmer. You can see it in my profile. I'm not making any prescriptions that require an MD. You're not paying me and I'm not claiming to dispense professional advice. I'm just sharing part of what worked for me. You're not required to read this or try meditation but it would only take you 30 minutes to try to sit in a quiet space and think about nothing, focusing on breathing. I do it every day now and it works great along with the understanding that we are all equally valuable. Nobody is more important than anyone else. What I write isn't more important than what you write. You're just as valuable as anyone else.

Reiteration:

Meditation can be catastrophic for people with depression.

There is a reason any meditation retreat will reject you if you answer 'yes' to currently going through depression.

Empty your mind, empty your feelings? Ummm.... Well, a depressed person has most of their feelings wiped to begin with, except for a heavy, sick, sinking, feeling.

A depressed person cannot think. You catch yourself just standing and sitting, hunched in one place and the whole day has passed.

Meditation is redundant for a depressed person. On top of that, there's so much stress hormones in the system just crossing the legs, and focusing on your breathing get become a source of distress.

People really have no idea what they're dealing with in depression because everyone assumes they've been through it, because that's what psychologists have always assumed. Then a real depressed person comes their way and they have to come up with a different name for it. Add a chronic, or a clinical, or some such bullshit -- it's the difference between alternative medicine and medicine. One is real, the other fake. One requires an MD, the other does not.

I have been going back to meditation my entire life to see if it will help, and it never does. It's good if you're feeling stable to begin with, but can really loop you out if you're depressed.

You don't get how serious it is. SUICIDE is a constant demon. You get that? Kill yourself kill yourself, evolution's kill switch, for the good of mankind, constantly going through your head is not some to be dismissed. If you say, meh, I can tell a depressed person what I want about what they should try and what might work, you are playing with nuclear fire.

> If you say, meh, I can tell a depressed person what I want about what they should try and what might work, you are playing with nuclear fire.

I'm not dispensing professional medical advice, I'm relating an experience I had. You're free to make up your own mind. I thought I already made that clear.

Anyway, I'm not talking about a meditation retreat. I've never done that and hear it is rather intense. I wouldn't recommend it to someone diagnosed with depression in any form. What I'm talking about can be done in the comfort of your own home. If you've tried that yourself and it hasn't worked then you need only say so and I'd see no reason for me to comment further. From your last comment, it sounds like you have tried that and it didn't help. For me, it did. It wasn't the full solution for me but it was a piece.

I'll just add that you don't need to sit cross legged to meditate. You can sit comfortably upright in a chair or lying down on a bed. This is all discussed in the book I recommended. It sounds like your experience with meditation was more strict than what I've experienced. There is more than one form of meditation. Discarding the whole practice as unworkable for anyone who has depression after only knowing directly about your own reaction to one form of meditation is as unscientific as anything I can imagine.

Best of luck to you. I hope you keep finding things that work for you.

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