Dental Work, or: Why Positive Psychology Can be a Pain For the Depressed Client

Teeth cleaning. This phrase may cause some of you a little anxiety, but for the most part, nothing's wrong with it, right? You go in, someone pokes around in your mouth, and eventually does what you do every morning and night but with industrial-grade tools and a little more efficiency. Overall this is an important part of one's health. It should even be done twice a year to keep tartar under control and check for early signs of problems. 

But now imagine that you have an abscessed tooth. Pain radiates every second of every day--so bad, it's literally almost deafening. Now imagine your dentist recommends that all you need to fix it is a good cleaning. If you have had the displeasure of an abscessed tooth, then you just screamed at me. The pain a cleaning would cause is probably a sufficient excuse for murder in some states, so why would any self-respecting dental patient put themselves through this?

They wouldn't! Unless they just didn't know better.

The past semester I have been in a Positive Psychology class (if you couldn't tell from everything else I've written here), and the topic is fascinating. I love the idea of improving everyone's quality of life so that mental illness is largely prevented...but what about those who are "legitimately" depressed? Those who cannot make it through an entire day without anti-depressants, or those who self-mutilate due to the numbness caused by dissociation? What about those who stare at themselves in the mirror, begging their reflection to finally give them the strength to commit suicide? Are they going to benefit from understanding the intricacies of human happiness? What about the Hedonic Treadmill? 

A lot of what I learned in positive psych, as far as exercises and therapies go, are the psychological equivalent of getting one's abscessed tooth hit with a water pick. This is NOT to say that positive psychology cannot help someone with depression; I just think it would be in everyone's best interest if this somewhat new form of therapy was parsed out in such a way that it can be used by depressed individuals without doing more damage than good. 

But, really, you ask. How can you be so certain that positive psychology could hurt anyone? I mean, positive is right in the name! 

Well, I know because I have an abscessed tooth...of the brain. (?) Okay, so the metaphor broke down a little there, but you know what I'm saying. I am a "depressed individual" and I have just gone through months of unbridled exposure to positive psychology: its concepts, its background, its possible and future applications...and let me tell you--the days where I wasn't simply enthralled with it, it sucked.

How can I make a list of three good things everyday, when I am literally trying to find one good reason not to slit my wrists?

How can I think of ways to enter/maintain a state of "flow," when I haven't found a way to make myself shower for the past week?

And don't even get me started on the despair that can come when trying to think of someone who is a fourth degree of separation from yourself (how far someone has to be from you before their happiness stops affecting your own) when you haven't spoken a single word to someone other than your spouse in over three months.

[Disclaimer] I'm doing much better now, don't worry (hell, the biggest evidence of that is that I'm actually writing something for the first time in forever). And to my positive psych teacher (who will inevitably read this), don't you worry, either. I don't hold you nor this class responsible for any ill health I may have been experiencing. If anything, it has been my responsibility for not re-framing all the information in a way for my depressed mind to digest. Re-framing is something I'll have to master anyway, if I plan on making it through the years of learning psychology and counseling, intact. 

But my point is that, while positive psychology is AWESOME at getting people from a "0 to a positive 8," getting someone from a "negative 8 to 0" is a whole other process. This process is a delicate one--so delicate, in fact, you have to go to school in order to be legally allowed to help with it. So to those who are practicing or plan to practice psychology at some point...just keep this in mind. I plan on laying out suggestions as to how to do this in the future. These suggestions will be full of assumptions and conjecture, but perhaps will help design a "test plan" for an experimental treatment of depression one day.

Doc and Chaps: Normalizing Psychology and Implementing Prevention Strategies

I've noticed quite a few articles that talk about prevention (including the first two articles for my positive psych class) and also trying to spread the word that psychology is not "just for crazies." But how do we do this?

The real life attempts I've seen have been interesting. Mental health fairs, talking posts, and advertising campaigns involving posters with a simple message: anyone can go to a therapist. But if you search for these terms, you'll see a lot about "awareness" themes focusing a lot on suicide and depression, or even just everyday stress. But these topics (while absolutely relevant and important) are the very reasons why the general public get scared away from us! 

Think of all the reasons why people don't want to see a therapist: 

• Freud. He is popularly known as a perverted psycho. While this may or may not be true, this is how a lot of people still see psychotherapy as a whole. They don't want to lay down on our couches and talk about how they want to bone their mother. That's just weird.*
• Avoidance. People spend a good portion of their lives trying not to think about sad or scary things. And, since this is what people think therapists are for, they try to avoid them. It's not necessarily healthy, but you can see where they are coming from, right?
• Misinformation. I'm sure that, if you are in the field of psychology or have told friends and family that that is what you are studying, someone, at some point in time, has asked you if you can analyze them or asked if you can read their mind. They feel like you are going to start probing their thoughts or some other crazy stuff (that would make therapy a lot easier, I bet). 
• Finally, a big part of it is that people feel like if they are associated with a therapist, they will be judged. A big movie trope is the lunatic who starts a date off with, "well, my therapist said..."

How can we change this?

Well, my first thought goes to the Navy, and the stark contrast between Naval physicians and chaplains versus the psychologists. "Doc" and "Chaps" were like local rock stars: they would walk around high-fiving, fist-bumping, telling jokes; even in their intimidating officer uniforms, you felt safe talking to them. When they just acknowledged your existence you felt special. But the psychologists, uniforms or no, hunkered down in their offices. They were stiff and uninviting, and if you had to go see them, it was usually because you were in trouble. 

So:

What if we took this route? In schools and colleges and even in larger workplaces, have a different kind of "Doc" running around? Obviously, they wouldn't be seeing patients all the time, but they would be a kind of "ambassador," if you will, to the rest of the psych department. Someone to monitor morale and spread the word about these "mental health fairs" and "talking posts." But they wouldn't have to focus just on mental health, either. They could be the ones to announce different club meetings (at schools) and occasionally hand out treats, or whatever. 

The only real drawback I see is if this person can't be seen as genuine. If it's too forced, it'll be obvious; introduction of this person would have to be slow. But I think if this idea is implemented all over the country (even the world, really), psychology as both a means for healing and for prevention could truly benefit. 

What do you think?

*Not judging, just sayin'.