Nearly every depressed person is assured by doctors, wellmeaning friends and family, the media, and ubiquitous advertisements that the underlying problem is a chemical imbalance. Such a simple defect should be fixable, yet despite all of the resources that have been devoted to finding a pharmacological solution, depression remains stubbornly widespread. Why are we losing this fight? In this humane and illuminating challenge to defect models of depression, psychologist Jonathan Rottenberg argues that depression is a particularly severe outgrowth of our natural capacity for emotion. In other words, it is a low mood gone haywire. Drawing on recent developments in the science of mood—and his own harrowing depressive experience as a young adult—Rottenberg explains depression in evolutionary terms, showing how its dark pull arises from adaptations that evolved to help our ancestors ensure their survival. Moods, high and low, evolved to compel us to more efficiently pursue rewards. While this worked for our ancestors, our modern environment—in which daily survival is no longer a sole focus—makes it all too easy for low mood to slide into severe, longlasting depression. Weaving together experimental and epidemiological research, clinical observations, and the voices of individuals who have struggled with depression, The Depths offers a bold new account of why depression endures—and makes a strong case for destigmatizing this increasingly common condition. In so doing, Rottenberg offers hope in the form of his own and other patients’ recovery, and points the way towards new paths for treatment.
[...]... know about the meaning of the symptoms: what they signify, what they represent, and, most of all, why they are happening to them A diagnosis of depression on its own does not explain the why, offers no interpretation of what might be wrong and —as important—what needs to change for all to be set right Faced with a case like Matt’s, doctors and therapists today invariably assert that the why of the symptoms... circumstances, we can begin to understand how together they have created the perfect storm of mood Only then will we get to the bottom of the depths of depression and in so doing, discover new ways to climb back out CHAPTER 2 Where the Depths Begin OUR BODIES ARE A COLLECTION OF ADAPTATIONS, EVOLUTIONARY legacies that have helped us survive and reproduce in the face of uncertainty and risk That does not mean... that The Depths has an immodestly large scope, spanning the ultimate origins of the capacity for depression to the forces that impel people in and draw people out of depressive episodes Although it might be comforting to blame someone or something, no single villain or cause can explain the entire depression epidemic Nor is there a single factor that, if changed, would reverse the epidemic Instead of. .. the attacked intruder will show significant signs of depression. 30 Some of the most arresting observations of separation come from the wild, where the impact of social bonds on mood can be observed in a natural setting Baby chimps and other monkeys have strong, reliable sequential reactions to being separated from their mothers For the first day or two the baby displays signs of protest: a period of. .. have the capacity for low mood in the first place, and integrative because a host of different forces (many hidden) simultaneously act on people to impel them into the kinds of low moods that breed serious depression Further, we will also integrate how people respond to periods of low mood, including responses that (even with the best of intentions) often have the paradoxical effect of making depression. .. to fight another day Another theory highlights the value of low mood as a “stop mechanism,” a means of discouraging effort in situations in which persisting in a goal is likely to be wasteful or dangerous Still another theory proposes that low mood states help sensitize people to “social risk” and help them reconnect when they are on the verge of being excluded from a group And yet another theory suggests... rare, they suggest that a reconciliation based on severity is problematic There are other reasons that reconciling the adaptive value of low mood based on the severity of the mood is likely to be unworkable First, it is difficult to isolate what’s different about the subgroup of people who have the depression disease.” We return to a glaring problem with defect models: no one has identified the basis of. .. periods of shallow depression (a hangover of symptoms).31 Longitudinal studies of the week-to-week course of depression also show frequent transitions between shallow and deep depression. 32 Over the course of a depression episode (they last, on average, about six months), a person may experience five or six of these transitions.33 It makes little sense that every one of these transitions represents a move... address two sets of influences on mood: those forces that render so many people vulnerable to long periods of shallow depression, and then those forces that worsen shallow depression The Changing Cost-Benefit Ratio of Adaptations As mentioned at the outset of this chapter, for any adaptation, we must accept the bad with the good The benefits of an adaptation can be surprisingly fragile They may, for... yet another single-bullet theory of depression, the chapters ahead detail a remarkable confluence of unfortunate circumstances Some began many millions of years ago and are built into the architecture of our mood system, whereas others, like human language, are of more recent advent, and still others reflect cultural and social factors operating in the last twenty or thirty years By examining these . Data Rottenberg, Jonathan. The depths : the evolutionary origins of the depression epidemic / Jonathan Rottenberg. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 97 8-0 -4 6 5-0 697 3-6 . explain the entire depression epidemic. Nor is there a single factor that, if changed, would reverse the epidemic. Instead of proposing yet another single-bullet theory of depression, the chapters. about the meaning of the symptoms: what they signify, what they represent, and, most of all, why they are happening to them. A diagnosis of depression on its own does not explain the why, offers