(Clinical/Counseling) Hopelessness Theory of Depression . . . and me!

Who doesn’t need a mental health tune-up from time to time? I know I sure do!

There is a history of depression in my family, so any time I start to feel a little “blue,” I have a counselor that I book a few appointments with. I have been doing this off and on for years with someone whom I trust and have an excellent rapport with. Two days ago, I walked into his office and before he could ask how I was doing, I blurted out, “Hopelessness Theory of Depression (HTD).” Of course, after a very quizzical look, I explained to him that I was studying Applied Social Psychology and this week’s lesson included HTD, so of course, I am now somewhat of an expert (insert sarcastic smile).

I had to reassure him that I was not suffering from any sort of syndrome where I randomly blurt out words, such as Tourette Syndrome, where symptoms include vocal tic(s) (Robertson, 2000). Once he was reassured, he humored my claim of academic knowledge in terms of HTD and we discussed how it applied to me.

Before I give my true to life story, I have a MAJOR spoiler alert: this is a pretty boring, and drama free therapy session. I’m a rather private person, so I will keep my exciting and drama filled sessions off of the public forum!

We decided to see if, with what I have learned this week, if I was at risk for HTD and started with the first element, “a vulnerable person (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012).” To label me as a vulnerable person, I would have to have a consistently negative outlook on events that have occurred in my life and their causes (sometimes called the pessimistic explanatory style or the depressogenic attribution style) (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). Well, let’s look at what we discovered, shall we? What is my style? Is it stable, meaning do I think the cause of the negative things in my life will be forever unchanging (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012)? Of course, I had to decide what was the biggest stressor in my life at the moment and I came up with one rather quickly: being EXHAUSTED from raising my toddler and going to school full-time. An argument could be made that this condition is stable. The old, unshrunk (my own made up word for “before therapy”) me probably would have perceived it as a stable condition. “Unshrunk me” probably would have felt like there was no end in sight and that these two stressors would always be a constant (and hence stable) part of my life. Years of therapy and countless dollars (actually, the dollar amount I have spent can be counted, but that would require too much time and I have many other things that I should be doing) spent have helped me change my perspective on situations like this. I have learned to view these, not as stable conditions, but as stressors that will some day end, and when it comes to the years raising my son, will end all too soon (sometimes stressors can be an incredibly beautiful thing that you cannot imagine your life without).

We also needed to contemplate whether or not my perception of my level of exhaustion had global attributions, in other words, did this greatly influence a lot of the aspects of the rest of my life (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012)? My therapist and I made the case that my level of exhaustion was considered global; if anyone has been genuinely exhausted, they know that fatigue affects everything in your life. We decided that we had indeed made the case for global attribution.

The second key to HTD is “negative environmental circumstances (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012).” This is where everything fell apart. I really had to scrape to come up with what was the most negative thing in my life at the moment, and my goodness, I hate to even attach the word “negative” with the thought of raising my incredibly handsome (seriously, it’s scientifically proven, my child is probably the most adorable child that has ever lived; the “scientists” that made this claim are myself, his father, and his grandparents) son. Please don’t get me wrong, I have had incredibly traumatic experiences in my life and I’m sure I will have more in the future, no one gets off this planet unscathed.

With one eyebrow raised, my therapist asked me if, according to HTD, if I was at risk for hopelessness depression. The answer? No. No I am not. At other times and other circumstances, I may have been, but again, a lot of time and money has been spent in my pursuit to acquire the tools to live a (somewhat) mentally healthy life. I am incredibly thankful for that. I prepared to leave his office with the statement, “Life is what it is, but for me, it is not hopeless.” Of course, his reply?

week-five-blog-picture“It makes me feel just fine!”

References

Robertson, M. M. (2000). Tourette syndrome, associated conditions and the complexities of treatment. Brain: A Journal of Neurology , 123, 425-462.

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd Edition ed.). Thousand Oaks, California, United States of America: SAGE Publications, Inc.

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3 comments

  1. I wish I had read your blog posts earlier! This was THE only post that made me laugh out loud as I was reading! As a person who goes to therapy regularly, I am so adding the word “unshrink” to my dictionary!

    Like I said, as I go to therapy regularly, studying psychology definitely confused me from time to time. Every phenomena or theory I read, I believed I had. I even started scheduling two visits a week, only because I was so hung up on it.

    Still, I agree with you that once we see the problems in our life as stressors, things start to get better. You won’t be raising a toddler forever, or you won’t be going to school full-time forever. You are not stuck with what you are doing right now till the end! Soon enough, you will be dealing with a teenager (which I can assume, is a lot harder! :)) and maybe work full-time instead of school. These might also bring new stressors to your life, but just like the ones you have right now, they are NOT forever! 🙂

    Once again, your blog post was incredible and not at all dull. It was a great read!

  2. Thank you so much for your comment! I definitely can see how being in a pocket of depression can contribute to fatigue, compounded by raising a child, which feeds back into the pocket of depression, and around and around it goes. Thank you for the insight!

  3. This is such an interesting blog post–and very well-written.

    I think it illustrates the idea that people who do not have a depressogenic attribution style, like you, may experience episodes of “feeling blue” or as the text calls it, “pockets of depression” (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012, p. 457), but you will not experience chronic all-pervasive depression.

    However, when you do experience these pockets of hopelessness depression, you are likely to feel lethargic and apathetic, as per Abela, Gagnon, and Auerbach (2007), in addition to some of the more classic DSM symptoms of depression. This may be the cause of your fatigue, although, of course, raising a child is no mean task and definitely fatigue-inducing!

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