Individuals with depression often experience uncontrollable negative thoughts. This process, known as rumination, has been found to be a major symptom of depression. In a recent study, Keisuke Takano and Yoshihiko Tanno, of the Department of Cognitive and Behavioral Science, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, examined the types and frequency of thoughts occurring in 68 depressed college students to determine the relationship between rumination and depression. They said, “A large body of recent studies has focused on a persistent, chronic form of self-focus as a trigger for psychological illnesses. Depressive rumination, which is conceptualized as the tendency to repetitively focus on symptoms of distress and the possible causes and consequences of these symptoms, is known to be a serious risk factor for depression.”

Using the experience sampling method (ESM), the participants were instructed to record their moods and thoughts at several different points throughout the day when prompted electronically. Over the course of seven days, the participants reported whether they felt distressed, upset, nervous, afraid, scared or jittery. The researchers asked the participants to identify the aspects of their thinking if it was unpleasant, uncontrollable and focused on self.

They discovered that the participants who experienced higher levels of all three aspects of thinking also had the highest levels of depression. “These results suggest that the self-focused thinking of trait ruminators is likely to be more negatively valenced and perceived as more uncontrollable,” said the team. Additionally, they found that the participants with high levels of depression were more likely to ruminate in the evening. “A number of studies suggest that presleep cognitive arousal—such as worry and rumination—leads to insomnia or poor sleep quality.” They added, “Investigating the causes and consequences of evening rumination would provide important insights into the mechanisms involved in the maintenance and exacerbation of depressive symptoms.”

Reference:
Takano, K., & Tanno, Y. (2011, April 25). Diurnal Variation in Rumination. Emotion. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0022757

According to a new study, certain cultures actually make people feel worse about feeling bad. Researchers at the University of Queensland, the University of Leuven, the University of Melbourne, and Kyoto University, collaborated to determine if society can exacerbate negative feelings. “We argue that when people believe that others expect them not to feel certain kinds of emotion, this perceived social pressure leads them to experience those unwanted emotions more frequently and more intensely,” said the team. “Specifically, we focus on the belief that others expect us not to feel negative emotions such as sadness or anxiety.”

The authors noted that popular culture and television in particular, stress the importance of happiness. “Meanwhile, commonplace emotional experiences such as sadness, depression, or anxiety are pathologized and medicalized, viewed as deviant from the desired norm,” they said. In four separate studies, involving participants from Australia and Eastern Asia, the researchers discovered that people from Western cultures experience an increase in negative feelings when they feel bad. “However, the importance placed on happiness and the devaluation of sadness is not as apparent in Asian cultures,” said the researchers. “In Japan, acceptance, emotional balance, and even hardship are highly valued, and the pursuit of happiness often has ‘immoral’ connotations.” The study looked at personal and social expectancies, focusing on both positive and negative emotions. They said, “Across four studies, we found evidence that perceived social expectations not to feel negative emotions are associated with more negative emotion and lower well-being.”

The researchers believe their findings are important for overall mental health and sense of life satisfaction. They said, “This finding highlights the potentially harmful effects of perceived social expectations for emotional experience. When social norms place pressure on people not to experience negative emotion, people react to these perceived norms with increased negative emotional responding.” They concluded by saying, “Our work shows that the more people hold beliefs that others expect them not to experience negative emotions, the more frequently and intensely they are likely to experience those negative emotions. Such ironic effects also relate to indicators of well-being, such as satisfaction with life and depression.”

Reference:
Bastian, B., Kuppens, P., Hornsey, M. J., Park, J., Koval, P., & Uchida, Y. (2011, July 25). Feeling Bad About Being Sad: The Role of Social Expectancies in Amplifying Negative Mood. Emotion. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0024755

This article contains detailed information and accounts of suicidal ideation & behavior. If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, get help now.

To continue to discuss the very different types of experience people have with depression, this is one that most people don’t experience, but is important to address, since some do. Suicide is not in this case a tool to get people to do or feel what the suicidal person wants; it’s simply the ultimate way to make unrelenting emotional pain stop.

I believe people’s experience of the emotional pain of life varies tremendously. Some of this is due to genetically influenced brain chemistry and resilience, but much of it is due to how much trauma and emotional hurt, loss, injustice, abuse, and other painful experiences people have experienced. We have beta endorphins in our brains to numb pain and create euphoria, so we can handle both physical and emotional pain. But people are born with varying amounts and life events can influence our supply as well. For people with very little of this chemical, life is much more painful. (more…)

A new article reveals that most teens that struggle with depression do not receive treatment. Each year, almost 2 million teens report having experienced an episode of major depression. However, only 30 percent of them receive treatment for the symptoms of anxiety, sadness, guilt and irritability. The findings were revealed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, in an effort to raise awareness at the severity of mental health issues in children. The study indicated that nearly 15% of teens had considered suicide in the previous twelve months, and the findings hope to help discover which children are at greater risk in order to implement the proper interventions and therapies to prevent injuries and death.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that 4,400 American adolescents and young adults commit suicide annually, and another 150,000 receive treatment for self-injuries. The Center confirms that the majority of children who take their own lives had a diagnosable and treatable mental health condition and often exhibited symptoms in the months leading up to their suicide. The study also revealed that children who reported symptoms of depression were more likely to engage in addictive and abusive behaviors involving drugs, cigarettes and alcohol. The report targets these children specifically in order so that professionals “can turn a life around and reduce the impact of mental illness and substance abuse on America’s communities,” said Pamela S. Hyde, an administrator for the agency. (more…)

This article is part of a series that explores the ways that specific “clusters” of depression symptoms manifest to create different experiences of depression. The previous article in this series discussed the low-ambition experience.

Self-attack is my term for thinking mean, diminishing, insulting, and shaming thoughts about oneself. People often think of this as low self-esteem, but I think self-attack better describes what is actually going on. People who experience depression often think like this, but it is also possible to engage in self-attack and not meet the full criteria to be diagnosed with depression. Whether or not your self-attack is part of depression, this is a very painful, disabling, quality-of-life-reducing, and even life-threatening way to exist.

In fact, I believe self-attack is possibly the most common type of misery and symptom of depression. So many people frequently say things to themselves—whether they even notice or not—that diminish or shame them: “I’m a failure,” “I’m stupid,” “I’m lazy” “I’m unlovable,” (which may sound like “I’m fat and ugly”, or take other forms), “I’m a terrible parent, employee, friend, spouse…,” “I can’t do anything right,” I’ll never be good enough,” “I’m not worth what I have,” and so on.

It may surprise you that people attack themselves for good reasons. Many do it because it’s how they understand love—it’s how their parents “loved” them. Others think that shame is the only thing that motivates them. Once people learn to handle themselves this way, they practice it over and over and over, and learning to do something different is very difficult.

I often ask people who are plagued by self-attack, “What if someone were following you around all day saying these things to you?” Most people would yell at them, argue with them, stop them, fight back, or at least get away from them. But when it’s their own voice, they listen and believe it—and it’s devastating.

This can change. There are ways to change this on our own, and ways that psychotherapy can help. In either case, the key is to develop an internal parent who parents us the way good parents do.

How the Parenting We Experience Affects Our Brains
This is the most important thing to know about how to become a happy, well-functioning adult. Generally, when children are parented by caretakers who understand their feelings and needs and respond to them compassionately and protectively, children learn to respond similarly to themselves. Over time, children build skills in parenting from imitating their parents. This is how we know how to take care of ourselves as adults.

We now know from neurological research that we are hard-wired through special neurons to imitate our parents. Our brains learn how to act in the world by incorporating the things that we see our caretakers do when we’re children. It’s a great system when we have parents who act in nurturing, protective, and wise ways. It doesn’t work so well when our parents are abusive, neglectful, unhappy, or dysfunctional people themselves.

We also see that our brains are able to re-wire throughout our lives, so if this doesn’t go well when we’re children, we can usually still change what goes on in our brains when we’re adults. This is what psychotherapy and EMDR do, but there are also ways to work on this outside of therapy.

We also know that when we close our eyes and imagine something, the same pattern of functioning occurs in our brains as when we look at something. So if you see your best friend, then close your eyes and imagine your best friend, your brain will be doing the same thing. This makes guided imagery very powerful. Anything we do that involves imagining being parented, or parenting ourselves in a nurturing, compassionate, protective, wise, functional way, can actually help build the brain structure we need to be the adults we would have been if we’d had better parents.

The Experience of Parenting Yourself
There are many ways to do this, but let’s take a couple moments to try out one. Think of a problem that is upsetting you right now—nothing too upsetting. Now imagine you have a niece or nephew, four to ten years old, who comes to you for help because they are struggling with a similar problem. With the most nurturing, protective, compassionate part of yourself in charge, what would you say to them? Write this down.

What would you do for them? What do you think you could give them that would help them feel a little better? Try expressing your understanding of their feelings and needs. Normalize what they’re experiencing. Show them compassion. Offer forgiveness if they need it. Offer solutions or ways to get solutions. Offer to stay with them through the process. Comfort them any way you can imagine.

Of course, this exercise is just a beginning. But once you learn to do this, and can do it with yourself, you have access to one of the most powerful tools we as human beings have to be happy and functional.

Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy can help with this process in many ways. For example, my clients usual begin to heal when I treat them with respect, am very genuinely interested in them and amazed by who they are, reflect what I see as I come to understand what they’ve had to overcome and how, and encourage them without shaming them. Being consistent and compassionate, listening carefully and responding with insight,  is what parents are supposed to do with children so that they can develop into happy adults. Many parents don’t or can’t do it well—usually because their parents couldn’t do it with them.

By being treated this way, people learn to treat themselves and others that way. They learn to expect healthy relationships where they are treated with a similar respect. It helps people express the feelings they haven’t felt safe to express and to feel more capable of coping with painful feelings. It builds self-esteem and confidence. In this environment, depression usually recedes.

Self-attack is very destructive, but can be overcome by developing a compassionate, nurturing, protective parent inside.

Depression varies from person to person and episode to episode, not only in its degree of intensity and disability, but also by which types of symptoms the depressed person experiences. Some people experience most or all of the symptoms of depression during depressive episodes, but many people experience only one or a few.

It always amazes me how some people with depression can obsess about suicide, but be compassionate, forgiving, and non-judgmental about themselves, while others can attack themselves viciously and yet never find any appeal to suicide. Others feel like they are weighed down by a thousand pounds of bricks when they try to get out of bed, or brush their teeth, or do the dishes, but be able to feel joy. And some can be negative about every aspect of the future, but have no trouble motivating themselves to get their chores done. Some people never get suicidal, no matter how depressed they get. Others never get irritable, or never turn to addictions.

The Cluster View

This is why I developed the “cluster view” of depressive experiences. Generally, a cluster of five depression symptoms is required for a depression diagnosis, but many people experience a cluster of one to four of the symptoms, often in ways that vary widely. Usually, each person has a fairly consistent and characteristic profile for which of these symptoms attack them when they get depressed. This is why I think it’s important to talk separately about each of the ways people experience depression, or depression-like symptoms.

The Low Ambition Experience

One of the experiences of depression is the lack of physical and/or emotional energy to motivate and function. People with this type of depression feel overwhelmed by life—sometimes constantly and by everything. They just don’t have the ability to motivate themselves to do what they need to do. This is very disabling, even in milder forms.

[fat_widget_depression_right]This experience is often misunderstand and called procrastination, irresponsibility, attention-deficit, laziness, passive resistance, sloppiness, incompetence, disorganization, and more. But when someone is missing “that thing” that makes people get up and go do something, life is constantly overwhelming. The depressed person may be constantly failing and can easily lose control of the functionality of their life. Most people take this ability to motivate themselves to do things for granted. They just have it—after their morning coffee, at least—and don’t have to think about it. But for those who suffer from the lack of that ability, life can be Hell.

People experiencing this type of depression may find they have trouble motivating themselves for certain chores or parts of their lives, or that the problem extends to everything they need to do. It’s very disabling to have to talk to yourself like a coach for an hour just to get up the energy to get out of bed, even more so if you can’t motivate yourself to take care of things you have to do—like your job, parenting, or self-care—no matter how hard you try.

Understanding Emotional Energy

I believe that the motivation center that depression attacks is our “emotional energy,” which is separate from physical energy. Emotional energy is hard to describe, but if you want to do something and your body has the physical energy and you’re not scared to do the thing, but you still can’t get yourself to do it, it’s probably because you have very low emotional energy.

People with this low emotional energy cluster are not necessarily without drive or ambition to succeed. People with low emotional energy can be very ambitious, driven, and able to fulfill their ambitions when they are not experiencing this symptom. But having low emotional energy is like wanting to run a marathon when your legs are tied together. Sometimes this symptom comes in people who have been very ambitious and worked so hard they burned themselves out. Even more confusingly, people can sometimes have enough physical energy to act, but still not have the emotional energy required to act.

Listening to Emotional Energy Communications

If you have low emotional energy symptoms, try listening carefully to your “ambition system” messages. Sometimes this depressed lack of motivation is simply due to brain chemistry—in which case, the message is about doing something to alter brain chemistry. But often, the message is related to how you feel about the things that you can’t get yourself to do. Could it be that you’re dissatisfied with your job, your partner, or something else in your life that you’d have to deal with if you got up and functioned? That could be what your lack of emotional energy is telling you.

Or is there something about your life you feel helpless to change? Research has repeatedly shown that helplessness causes depression, and feeling helpless can drain people’s emotional and physical energy. If feel like you can’t have an impact, no matter what you do, then why try to do anything?

Repressing feelings of anger can also drain people for different reasons. If you think that letting yourself be angry will be destructive and you suppress it, there are two consequences: it takes a lot of energy to suppress those feelings, and you are suppressing a great deal of life-force and energy that come with anger. Your system might also know that if you have no energy, you can’t get very angry, so it cuts off your energy to protect you from perceived negative consequences of getting angry.

Living the Reality of Low Ambition

When people listen to the communications that their low emotional energy is telling them, they often find that the problem is trying to get themselves to do things because they “should” or because someone else wants them to: they try to force themselves to do things. I have found that if you wait and watch carefully, there may be moments when you feel like you can do something, or even want to. You may have to wait minutes, hours, days, or months before that moment happens, but if you can possibly afford to wait, listen, and seize the moment when you feel it, then suddenly something that felt impossible can feel easier, or even a little exciting. Noticing those moments of energy and acting on them is very important. It’s easy to ignore these moments and let things get worse.

Sometimes altering your expectations can shift your emotional energy as well. Like, what would actually happen if you didn’t fold your laundry—just stuffed it in drawers, or left it in the laundry basket? Would that make doing the laundry feel more achievable? The rules we carry about how things “should” be done can make them unachievable when you’re depressed. If you can give yourself permission to do whatever is absolutely necessary for you, it can allow you to continue to function in the world. If you can’t bear to do something, put it off, or get help—as much as possible. Make sure you get enough rest and are not trying to do too much. Make sure you have enough pleasurable activities, rest, and unstructured time. Ambition grows in certain environments and wilts in others—learn what these are for you.

Since my last blog, Depression Medications: How Can You Get Your Libido Back? a number of you have asked for more information about possible sexual side effects caused by antidepressants. Before I say more—a cautionary word—I’m a psychotherapist/counselor, not a medical doctor/psychiatrist. So what I write in this blog is drawn from my (extensive) experience working with people who have challenges and/or difficulties with sex—I’m a sexologist, not a psychopharmacologist!

Some of the worst culprits, or libido smashers, are the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Effexor, Paxil, Prozac, and Zoloft. Unfortunately, these are all heavily prescribed. I mentioned last month that many folks can benefit from a so-called “drug holiday,” when they forgo their medication for a few days. Be aware that this intervention does not work for Prozac. This is due to the much longer period of time that Prozac remains in the bloodstream, compared to the other shorter-acting SSRIs, like Zoloft.

Several types of antidepressants have virtually no side effects. The most common ones that I hear about are Wellbutrin, Xanax, and Klonopin. I’ll often suggest, to the new people I see, substituting (with the agreement of their medical doctor, of course) Xanax or Klonopin for Wellbutrin because the latter can exacerbate anxiety or “agitated depression,” as it’s called by psychiatrists.

Wellbutrin is also infamous for causing insomnia and headaches, which tend to make most of us anxious, and it certainly doesn’t contribute to an enjoyable sexual connection! Wellbutrin is pharmacologically distinct from the SSRIs, as it enhances the neurotransmitter dopamine, which has the opposite effect on libido and orgasm of serotonin. Xanax and Klonopin are usually prescribed to combat anxiety, not serotonin, so they tend to have very few sexual side effects.

I will often recommend that people who are leery about psychotropics try St. John’s Wort, which is most effective, I’ve found, for Type A blood types (remember, I’m not prescribing, just using anecdotal experience to make these suggestions!). Because it’s not regulated as a pharmaceutical substance, I’m told that efficacy can vary widely.

[fat_widget_left] The individuals I see in my office have reported that Viagra is effective for SSRI-induced absence of orgasm, and I’ve known people of both genders who swear by the botanical preparation ginkgo biloba to reverse libido, arousal, and/or orgasm problems. One sex therapist colleague tells me that Viagra can be helpful for women as well, but no one I work with has directly reported this to me.

If switching to an alternative psychotropic is not clinically appropriate or effective, some doctors might recommend adding another medication on a daily or as-needed basis. Many people are hesitant about taking one drug, let alone two! But for those who are comfortable with it, a second medication can often offer an antidote to the side effects of an otherwise helpful medication.

Most commonly, a sexual-savvy psychiatrist will prescribe a single low dose of Wellbutrin for people complaining of sexual side effects from other antidepressants—employing lower does of Wellbutrin than would be necessary to treat depression alone. These small doses can restore the serotonin-dopamine balance that I mentioned earlier, alleviating sexual side effects.

People starting out with me often ask if I suspect that their sexual problems are relationship issues or caused by medication. I always ask them how long the sexual challenges have been occurring. SSRI-induced sexual dysfunction follows a fairly typical pattern: it begins within days or weeks of starting the new psychotropic medication. For example, a woman may report that she can no longer reach orgasm with her husband within weeks of beginning Prozac for obsessive compulsive disorder.

Women rarely volunteer this immediately, but I ask LOTS of questions, which makes it easier to discuss sexual concerns. Men usually have less hesitation talking about such problems, and as one man said to me recently, “that’s why we came to a sex therapist and not the marriage therapist down the street!” The fact that I coach by phone also seems to help, especially for men, who might have difficulty opening up “when the plumbing doesn’t work!”

Don’t forget—if you have questions about your medications, make sure to discuss them with your medical doctor or psychiatrist.

An estimated 40% of students who begin college don’t graduate from their initial school within six years. While some take longer or transfer to a different institution, a great deal of these students drop out altogether. Seeking to learn the causes behind college dropout, Michigan State University analyzed surveys of over 1,000 college freshmen from ten different schools. Students were asked whether they’d recently experienced twenty different “critical events” (ranging from poor grades and money troubles to job recruitment and inheriting money) and were asked whether they planned to withdraw. Of the twenty critical events, depression was the factor most frequently linked with academic withdrawal. Other leading experiences included roommate conflicts, unexpected bad grades, recruitment to a job or different school, and increased financial burden (either losing financial aid or experiencing a drastic hike in tuition or living costs).

Depression has been on the rise in college campuses for the past several years, so it should come as little surprise that it’s influencing students’ decision to drop out of school. University counseling resources are being tapped by an increasing number of undergraduates, many of whom site financial strains on their family as a primary cause of personal angst, pressure and even guilt. The slow economy also serves as a metaphorical cloud over these students’ future plans, who fear meager job prospects upon graduation. (more…)

When a loved one hurts you through excessive criticism, put downs or abuse of any kind, you experience emotional and often simultaneous physical pain. But can emotional abuse be considered traumatic? Dr. Francine Shapiro defines two types of trauma—“big T” trauma and “little t” trauma. “Big T” trauma refers to what we commonly think of as trauma like war or natural disaster, “little t” trauma refers to incidents such as getting teased as a child or getting rejected by your first love. Most people experience “little t” trauma some time in their lives. People who live with and love someone emotionally abusive experience “little t trauma” on a daily basis. The experience of put downs, criticisms or whatever form emotional abuse takes, not only wears down self-esteem but also impacts the nervous system. Memories of the abuse can elicit negative feelings, tense physical sensations along with negative thoughts about yourself long after the abuse has occurred.

Human beings are born with a fight, flight, or freeze response. This is nature’s way of protecting us from danger. However, our minds can’t differentiate between the danger of let’s say the sound of a grizzly bear from the sound of the voice of someone who yells at you on a regular basis. In essence, prolonged exposure to emotional abuse can create similar symptoms to posttraumatic stress disorder experienced by a combat veteran. These symptoms include anxiety, depression, social withdrawal, and avoidance of situations or people that are reminiscent of the abuser, difficulty sleeping, flashbacks of abusive memories, difficulty focusing on the present or trouble concentrating. There can also be stress-related physical symptoms like migraines, digestive problems, fibromyalgia, or fatigue.

My work as a therapist is devoted to help heal those who have suffered from abuse. I believe the only way to facilitate deep and lasting healing is to treat the trauma associated with the abusive incidents. I do so with a technique called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. EMDR has been well researched as an effective treatment approach to eradicate symptoms related to trauma. This technique can alleviate anxiety, depression, and other related disturbances resulting from emotionally abusive experiences. EMDR helps the individual eradicate any disturbance related to an abusive incident; the memory of the incident remains but the disturbing emotions and sensations associated with the memory are eliminated. Then, the person can move on in their life free from the “ghosts” of the past. EMDR can relieve symptoms fairly quickly.

Here’s a case example. “Jane” came to therapy lacking self-confidence in meeting men. When I took a look at her thorough history, it turned out she was mercilessly bullied by peers when she was a child. Jane agreed to EMDR treatment and after a few sessions, reported no leftover negative emotions or disturbances when she thought about the bullying. She reported feeling more confident and outgoing in the company of men. Even the way she carried herself changed; she held her head high with much better posture having an air of confidence.

You don’t have to suffer from trauma related to emotional abuse. You can free yourself of painful memories and move on with your life in a positive direction with the help of an EMDR trained therapist.

The term “spiritual bankruptcy” is a word used in the rooms of 12-step programs to characterize addicts who have lost their connection to “higher power.” One dictionary definition describes spiritual bankruptcy as “a state of complete lack of some abstract property.” Recently, I’ve been pondering what I believe “spiritual bankruptcy” means and how it appears in the people I know personally and treat in my practice.

If I were to think of the personal qualities of someone who seems to be spiritually bankrupt, what comes to mind is despair. The spiritually bankrupt person cannot envision a future different from the present. The spiritually bankrupt person has lost his/her moral compass and makes poor choices. The spiritually bankrupt person is self-absorbed and often oblivious of the effects of his/her actions on others.

As I write this, these qualities are sounding an awful lot like how I would describe someone who is deeply depressed. And I also wonder, what’s chicken and what’s egg. Does someone become depressed because he/she is spiritually bankrupt or is it the other way around?

People become depressed for many reasons including genetics, life circumstances and temperament (sensitivity). Can we say that a person who has faith and is deeply spiritual will never become depressed? That faith and being spiritually grounded will always be the antidote to depression?

I’m not so sure. But what I do know is that those who have faith, who are connected to the God of their understanding, who have a relationship with a higher power do recover from bouts of depression faster and more completely.

The reasons for this I believe are that a spiritually connected person knows somewhere in the depths of his/her being that the depression is temporary, an aberration as opposed to a constant and permanent state of being. The spiritually connected person can look at the depression as holding value for him/her, perhaps in the form of some opportunity for deeper understanding of self and life.

In other words, the spiritually grounded person may not succumb to the same level of despair or lack of hope that someone without a spiritual connection might.

In my particular faith (Yoruba), we believe each individual has a destiny and it is his/her obligation to fulfill that destiny. Everything is part of it, including sadness, pain and even depression. Depression is not viewed as punishment for wrong doing or as some moral failure. Knowing that can be a strong hedge against losing that connection to higher power. It is a hedge against the sort of spiritual bankruptcy I started out describing in paragraph one.

We must each find our own spiritual path. Our beliefs can take many forms. We can be a part of many different spiritual and religious communities. But one thing all religions and spiritual paths have in common is the presence of the divine. A spiritual connection can help people feel a greater sense of fulfillment in life. The emphasis is on the “fill” in the word fulfillment. It is one of the best remedies for that deep-seated emptiness that many people feel. We as humans, by connecting to our spiritual selves, have the opportunity to compensate for what we never received in our families of origin and perhaps from society.

We are in the midst of January. One way to combat the cabin fever of winter and the shorter daylight hours for those across the northern hemisphere is to turn to creative processes.

In 2010, during one of the worst blizzards in New York history, many people bundled up and went outdoors with their cell phones or digital cameras to capture the beauty of the pristine snow against the textured backdrop of the urban environment. Some captured the absurdity of humans struggling against Mother Nature in their fight to dig out and return to ‘normal’ as soon as possible.

Contrast often gets our attention. It can be very dramatic. Drama can cause a variety of experiences such as: awe, giddiness, fear, and sometimes shock.

Coping with an experience generally falls into three categories:

1. engaging in the experience
2. avoiding it
3. overcompensating for it

After the blizzard, some people gave into the experience and engaged with the snow. Some people avoided it by staying away from the region or staying indoors. Others got caught up in the ‘expectation’ that the Department of Sanitation would handle what Mother Nature was delivering. When those in charge fell short, the situation heated up, not enough to melt the snow but in finding someone to blame.

The ‘unexpected’ can cause a range of feelings in humans, from joy to fear. The ways in which people cope are specific to them, to their early life experiences, their stage in life, and their future concerns. Most people had an experience flowing somewhere in-between. In some people the unexpected contrast of the heavy snow sparked their creativity. Others felt shutdown. In extreme cases their basic survival was threatened because support vehicles could not get down snow-packed side streets. Mother Nature is not fair in how she delivers her impact. She just does. Just as a bobcat in the wild does not discern which animal to take down for its next meal, Mother Nature spares some and hits others hard without reason.

In art, the contrast between the dark pigment of charcoal against light or absence of pigment on paper can create drama that is compelling to the eye. The self-portraits of Kathe Kollwitz and Egon Schiele are good examples of this. In Kathe Kollwitz’s work, drama is created by the contrast of not only the pigment but of the pressure applied to the paper, and the use of contrasting line to define and imply action or the lack of it. In Schiele’s numerous self-portraits, intensity is created by the placement of thick, dark, lines which define and the almost absence of pigment in other areas. Schiele’s self-portraits express his willingness to expose himself literally and figuratively on paper and canvas. If you Google an ‘image’ search for Kollwitz or Schiele and self-portraits, you will find very expressive examples of contrast in: texture, line, form shape and subject matter. You may find the experience exhilarating. You may find some of the artwork off-putting. The art may trigger feelings like the snow did for many New Yorkers.

In art, as in life, all drama or complete void cannot be tolerated for too long. The experience would be overwhelming. Many people have had an experience of contrast that shakes their lives and shapes them forever, for example: the profound loss of someone or something, a traumatic experience, relationship issues, a sense that something is holding them back from living fully, or an expectation that life has let them down. Uncontrollable anxiety that flares up and takes over, or depression that has an emotional base so deep that it limits the simple pleasures in life are indicators that life is being coped with rather than lived. Most of life is lived in the flow somewhere in-between contrasting poles of drama and void, in the blended parts of life where life is fluid, where creativity and hope are accessible.

Many people are so unhappy that they find a therapist or counselor to work through their struggles. Plenty more people are content enough with their lives. But some are truly happy. Where does that happiness come from? Does money buy it? Self-confidence? Safety? Support systems? A fulfilling job? Pets? Everyone’s combination of life experience is different, but repeated studies have identified that some groups tend to be happier than others. Recent studies have looked a bit closer at the happiness quotient of two specific (though very different) groups: people who live in “walkable” neighborhoods, and people who are involved in church. Both had one major factor in common: human relationships.

First, churchgoers. Religion’s “secret ingredient” for making people happy, says the study, is the social ties people build when involved in a religious community. This is not to say that private spirituality is without positive psychological value; past studies have found that spirituality reduces both stress and depression. But those who attend church and build relationships there are consistently happier than those who attend and do not build relationships. Second, the study on walkable neighborhoods and well-being. Walkable neighborhoods provide easy access to post offices, parks, restaurants, playgrounds, barbershops, and club meeting venues. People who live in walkable neighborhoods tend to build “social capital” – they are more likely to meet people, become involved in community volunteer work, build relationships through that work, and ultimately feel happier. (more…)