The One You Feed - Jonathan Rottenberg, Ph.D. on Depression

Episode Date: February 27, 2019

Jonathan Rottenberg is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of South Florida where he’s the director of the mood and emotion laboratory. He’s also the author of the book, The Depths:  The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression Epidemic“, which he and Eric have discussed before. In this interview, they discuss some of the studies and research he’s involved with specific to those who go on to flourish after having depression. Why do they? What can we learn from them? There’s hope and practical wisdom in this episode for you.Need help with completing your goals in 2019? The One You Feed Transformation Program can help you accomplish your goals this year.But wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!In This Interview, Jonathan Rottenberg and I Discuss…His book, The Depths: The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression EpidemicThriving after depressionThe studies and research he’s involved withPeople who thrive after depressionThe destructive and recurring nature of depressionThe typical low expectation for those with depression about life moving forward and how it should be differentWhat is mental “health”?Psychological well beingExperiencing positive emotionsExperiencing negative emotions to a lesser degreeFeeling of balance in lifeHaving meaningful relationshipsFeeling a sense of autonomy over your lifeHow happy should we expect to be?Having elements of wellbeing amidst struggling with depressionThe 3 things that seed a low mood: events, temperaments, and routinesRuminationWays that people can work with depression more skillfullyHaving a different relationship with your negative thoughtsHaving connections with othersResearch on flourishingHow much control do we have over our state of flourishing?That it’s never too lateThere is hopeOur culture that idealizes euphoriaThe role of our basic temperamentFactors of wellbeing other than emotion and moodThe organization he helped found, Depression ArmyThe interesting and transformative experience of depressionThat his depression has been defanged and it doesn’t break the skin anymoreJonathan Rottenberg, Ph.D. Links:Depression ArmyFacebookTwitterInstagramBlinkist – Do you have an ever-growing list of books to read? Blinkist can help! With thousands of non-fiction books distilled down to their most salient points that you can consume in 15 minutes or less, go to www.blinkist.com/wolf for a 7-day free trialPolicy Genius helps you compare insurance plans and find the right policy for you at a price you can afford and then they handle everything – negotiating your rate and booking your appointment. Visit www.policygenius.comRobinhood is an investing app that allows you to buy and sell stocks, EFTs, Options and Cryptos all commission free at any level. All it takes to do so is 4 taps in the app on your smartphone so it makes investing easy for beginners and experienced people alike. For The One You Feed listeners, you can get a free stock like Apple, Ford, or Sprint to help you build your portfolio by going to  youfeed.robinhood.comIf you liked this episode, you might also enjoy these other episodes:Johan HariLisa Feldman BarrettTherese BorchardSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you go into a doctor's office and you have depression, you want to know, what are my chances? What's likely to happen to me? Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living.

This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Hey, y'all. I'm Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls. This January, join me for our third annual January Jumpstart series. Starting January 1st, we'll have inspiring conversations to give you a hand in kickstarting your personal growth. If you've been holding back or playing small, this is your all-access pass to step fully into the possibilities of the new year. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. On today's episode, we have Jonathan Rottenberg, an associate professor

of psychology at the University of South Florida, where he's the director of the Mood and Emotion Laboratory. Jonathan is also the author of The Depths, a book which Eric has discussed with him before. And today they're going to discuss some of the studies and research that Jonathan is involved with. Hi, Jonathan. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. It's a pleasure to have you on again. You and I talked, I was remarking to you before the interview, about four years ago. And we had a great conversation then, and listeners can go back and listen to that, where we talked about your book, The Depth, which was a book that really talked about how

depression can be viewed through an evolutionary psychology lens as an adaptation. And you've gone on since then to do some other interesting studies. This is a lot of what you focus on in your work as a researcher. So we'll get into all this stuff, but let's start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and thinks about it for a second and looks up at

his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Well, I'm very much interested in finding out which wolf wins. I'm very invested in the topic of depression, and it's been viewed as something that is destructive, that takes people in a terrifying negative direction. But I think that there's another overlooked possibility that if we feed ourselves in the right way, we might be able to take depression in a much more creative, productive direction. And so that's what the parable really means for me, this duality, this dual potential. So one of the things that most recently,

a study you released, really talks about how one of the main things that seems to be missing in all the research that's getting done is looking at people who thrive after depression and really wondering, you know, A, make that more of a common thing that people realize it happens, but also look at people who thrive as a lens to see what might work to help with depression. And you've recently done a study about that. Can you share a little bit about what you've learned? Sure. I think it helps to back up a little bit. So I, like most people, have been studying all the things that make people depressed, that make depression last longer, that make depression recur. And we've really gotten the message that depression is terrible, is destructive, and it's borne out in all the statistics. You probably have heard about the statistics as being the most disabling disease in the world. But I think we've kind of

gotten that message too much in the sense that researchers have neglected to even look for good outcomes. And if you don't look for something, you're surely not going to find it. So in this new program of research, what I'm interested in doing is focusing our lens on those who enjoy well-being after depression. And so what does some initial work look like? It looks like there was a very small research study as part of this initial work. Well, I actually think that what we found is quite significant. If you think about, again, the destructive potential of depression, how it does tend to recur in disabled people in a variety of ways.

It's destructive to relationships. It impairs us at work. It leaves us feeling miserable. You'd think that after someone experienced one or more depressive episodes that they're unlikely to experience levels of well-being, balance in life, feeling that their existence is purposeful to the extent or greater than people who had never had depression. So, we did a study where we were looking at a big data set of adults, and we had norms on well-being for both people who are depressed and people who are non-depressed. And we first had to figure out, so, who's doing well in life? We essentially had all these different categories, all these different aspects of well-being, like purpose in life, positive emotion, not experiencing negative emotion.

We found that about a fifth of non-depressed people had this consistent profile of looking like they were really doing well, had very consistent high levels of psychological well-being. So then the big question is, what is having depression due to that possibility? And I think a lot of people going in would think that depression, not that it would be zero, but it would be very low. Your chances of enjoying well-being at the same level as that top fifth, that kind of rarefied air of people who are really going along in life and flourishing. And so, what we found was that depression reduced the chances by about one half. So, about 10% of people who had a documented depressive episode when they were followed 10 years later, were flourishing in that kind of rarefied

air. And so I know some people are glass half full, other people are glass half empty. I see this as a big glass half full kind of finding, but we can talk about what it means. Right. So essentially what you're saying is that for a lot of people, depression is not the end of the road. And not only do they recover from depression or come back to what we would consider a normalized state, they fall into the category of people who are really thriving in life. If you look at messaging around depression, heck, if you go into a doctor's office and you have depression and you want to know, what are my chances? What's likely to happen to me? By and large, what you hear are very, very cautious statements.

The best you could hope for is we'll try to keep these symptoms at bay. We'll try to make sure you have some well periods, stay on the medication, stay in treatment. And I'm not saying that those are unwise things, but the expectations are awfully low and the picture of the future is awfully dim. And I think that this proves to be true in other studies. I think that doctors and other mental health professionals can be somewhat more positive about the possibilities. And so let's briefly talk about some of these measures of well-being, because I thought they were really interesting to explore on their own of this is what someone who is, again, to use the word that was certainly used in the New York

Times article, this is a description of people who are thriving. So let's maybe talk through what some of those facets are, because I do think they help paint a more nuanced picture of what mental health and emotional health looks like. Yeah, it's a great point. I'm glad you're asking about that. So I think that what is mental health has not received nearly the same attention as what is mental ill health. So we had to do some work here to come up with a credible battery, focusing on psychological well-being, knowing that there are other elements of well-being that we couldn't do everything all at once. So we focused on psychological well-being, and that included things like experiencing positive emotions, experiencing negative emotions to a relatively low degree,

feeling that your life was purposeful, feeling that you have balance in your life, having meaningful relationships, feeling a sense of autonomy, like you're in control of your life as opposed to being in control. So those are some of the major facets of well-being that we examined. Yeah. And as I was reading it, a thought occurred to me, which is how many of these characteristics can you have and still be considered to be highly functioning? That's a great question because one's assumption would be that depression would destroy various manifestations of well-being. And it's a reasonable assumption, but it does not appear to be the case because we want to find out, we want to predict which people of those who were originally

depressed are the most likely to be flourishing 10 years later. The thing that predicted it was actually being able to report some level of well-being at the get-go, at the outset. So, yes, depression on average is very harmful to these multiple aspects of well-being, but there still are individual differences. So you could imagine someone who, for example, had depression. They're very depressed, but they just had a baby. So they are depressed. They're very sad about it, But their life does have purpose in the sense that even if their life right now is in the trash can, they look at their newborn and they feel like, that's a reason to live. That's a purpose in my life. That's meaning in my life.

And it was exactly that sort of thing, having those kinds of experiences that was predictive of doing better 10 years later. As I look at this list, I mean, there are two categories that sound like what we normally think about when we think about depression, which is, you know, having lots of positive emotions or, you know, not having a lot of negative emotions. But all the other categories here, negative emotions. But all the other categories here, they're not so much based on what we're feeling. Exactly. They involve to what extent our lives are full of meaning and purpose. That's many of the elements or in some way are satisfying despite the pain that might be inherent in being alive. Right. And this is interesting to me, you know, when we talked before and listeners know, I mean, I am someone who wrestled with depression for a long time. And I don't know how to describe

my relationship with it now, right? Because I do have what feel like moments of unexplained low mood. So not so much like negative emotions as in like, oh, my dog died, I'm sad. Not that, but I feel empty or, you know, the traditional anhedonia, like that still shows up for me from time to time. But when I look at all these other measures, and if you asked me, I would say I am absolutely thriving. Like, I look at having had depression as generally a positive in my life, maybe because I'm a podcaster who deals with these things, and that yes. Even if I might say that the positive and negative emotions maybe aren't quite where I would want them to be. And again, I always wrestle with this and you and I talked about this a little bit in the other episode around how happy should we expect to be? And by expecting to be super happy, in some cases leads to less happiness. Well, you don't mind my saying something personal. I think that the fact that you have some elements of well-being even in the middle of depression is a kind of armor

that should help you ward off the really significant, bone-crushing, chronic depression. And that's something that if we could give that to all people who struggled with depression, I suspect that we would still have depression, of course, but the depression would be shorter. It wouldn't take over and be as destructive as it often is. So I think that's a pretty important insight. Yeah, it definitely has my depression such that I have it. And again, I often am like, do I have it? Do I not have it? What's my relationship to it? But it is certainly far more reduced than it once was.

But there does seem to be some recurrence of it. And in your book, The Depths, you talk about three things that seed sort of a low mood. And you talk about events, temperaments, and routines. And I think that that's so useful when we're trying to sort of look at the question of, are depressed or how depressed are we or what are these things is sort of examining those things because I do think they give a little bit of a more nuanced window into this question of am I depressed or not depressed? Yeah, I think that if people think of their mood as a more normal thing, not as the enemy, and again, sort of like the parable, you can do things that are feeding

your better mood. And to the extent that you do that, you still will have depression, but it will be briefer, it'll be less destructive, and it'll be less intense. So I do think that in our culture, there's a tendency to be binary. Am I depressed? I'm not sure that's the right question. A question is, what sort of mood am I in and what are the things that are feeding it and what are the things that are within my control that I can do to learn from it and to be healthier? Right. One of the things I wanted to ask you is you published something in the annual review of clinical psychology not too long ago, but the title of it was emotions in depression. What do we really know? And you talk about,

you say that we, you know, you report on what we've learned thus far about how depression influences emotional reactivity and emotion regulation, and also really show what we don't yet know. And I'd be curious if you could maybe talk just a little bit about some of what you wrote in that article. You know, what do we know about depression and emotional reactivity and regulation versus what don't we know? Yeah, we have more questions than answers, but I think our questions are more interesting questions than the questions we used to have, so we'll call that progress. So I think that we started out with a kind of a cartoon version that depressed people have sadness attacks, sort of like people who have panic disorder have panic attacks, sudden bursts of sadness. In my research and research from other investigators has really shown that not to be the case. What seems to be true is that depression really kind of devoids the emotional landscape of

bumps. In a sense, it flattens it out and people experience less differentiation. So, I go to a happy context, I feel terrible. I go and I look at something that's tragic and I have a very similar reaction, especially in laboratory studies, this phenomenon called emotion context insensitivity, where people are reporting the same emotions in different contexts. So that's one thing that we've learned. a somewhat different picture where, though it's true that people don't have the same kind of predictable emotions, people with depression have negative emotions in kind of unpredictable ways in the sense that there's nothing about their context that's negative, but nevertheless, they have the experience of negative emotions. So, it's almost like there's a decoupling or a disjunction between the things that normally make us feel emotion when we're in a state of depression. So, for example, depressed people, they might have

periods where they feel really intensely upset, but it might be actually a very minor event that provokes that, not the sort of thing that ordinarily would get us to experience strong bursts of emotion. So, you know, I had one sentence to describe it. The depression, it kind of removes the normal emotion antecedents, but then replaces them with ones that are unpredictable and confusing. And I think that this sort of accords with how a lot of depressed people experience their emotions as often being confusing, not understanding their mood and just feeling like they're always searching for why it is that they feel the way that they do. Thank you. Hey, y'all. I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls.

And I'm thrilled to invite you to our January Jumpstart series for the third year running. All January, I'll be joined by inspiring guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations. We're talking about topics like building community and creating an inner and outer glow. I always tell people that when you buy a handbag, it doesn't cover a childhood scar. You know, when you buy a jacket, it doesn't reaffirm what you love about the hair you were told not to love. So when I think about beauty, it's so emotional because it starts to go back into the archives of who we were, how we want to see ourselves and who we know ourselves to be and who we can be.

So a little bit of past, present and future all in one idea, soothing something from the past. And it doesn't have to be always an insecurity. It could be something that you love. All to help you start 2025 feeling empowered and ready. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jason Alexander.

And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal?

The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you. And the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by.

Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? I've looked at depression as I've been in it in two different ways. One way, and it's mostly the way I do it now, is I almost just treat it, because it's cyclical for

me and it doesn't really land on me and stay on me in the same way. You know, I tend to look at it and treat it sort of as an emotional flu. I just look at it and go, okay, well, am I taking care of myself? All right, let me make sure I'm doing the things that I know are good for me. And then I'm going to kind of ride this out. And I don't go plumbing the depths for deeper meaning of what's wrong, because I know with enough history that there isn't much of anything wrong, really, or it seems like there's not anything particularly wrong. But there also does seem to be the case that, you know, and your previous book discusses this to some extent, where, you know, the depression is an adaptation to something happening. And it's worth digging a

little deeper to find out what that might be. And I'm just kind of curious from your perspective, is one of those approaches better than the other, or is it totally context dependent? Yeah, I don't think there's one right way to respond to depression, but I do think that the dominant response that people are having right now in our culture is often very harmful. Our culture is very intolerant and in some ways frightened of negative emotion. And we interpret this as a sign that there's something wrong with us. There's something wrong with how we're thinking. There's something wrong with how we're feeling.

There's something wrong with our life. And this has a sense in which it can actually magnify the state because we're feeling. There's something wrong with our life. And this has a sense in which it can actually magnify the state because we're wondering, why am I not happier? Why am I still unhappy? I'm still unhappy. Why? And what you're describing is a somewhat more patient attitude where while we, on the one hand, we do inquire into the state and what it might mean, but we don't do it with a kind of desperation. And I think it's the kind of desperation, the kind of desperate responses that people have that prolong the depression. And sometimes they don't even produce the kind of insight that you would think they might produce by constantly asking the question, why am I still sad? Why am I still sad? Right. Because that can lead to depression, which is rumination.

Absolutely. Depression is a tricky thing. So it may mean something that you need to change in your life, or it may be that you're not getting enough sleep, or it may be that your diet needs to change, or you need to get more exercise, or you need to get more light. And so, because the mood system is open to so many different inputs, but in terms of the original design, yes, it's true that the mood system was there originally in part to register major shocks, so major threats to your long-term well-being. So you can predict that, yeah, people will get depressed when a person close to them dies.

They'll feel depression. Now, it may not last for months and years, but it's a normative response. It's a natural response, and it's part and parcel of why we have moods. And so I, like you, am not against depression and trying to eradicate it to zero. The question is, how do we live with it? How do we contain it? How do we take it in a positive direction? I think that's a different set of questions than the questions we typically ask of depression. Now, in the situation that you described, which is someone very close to you dies and you are in a grief state, would we consider that or would you consider that depression

or is that just a word that we throw on a low mood state of grief and loss? I don't think there's any hard and fast way to distinguish between a low mood that is non-pathological and a clinical depression that is pathological. It's just a continuum of mood. And I know it's unnerving because people want the clear labels. They want to know what is the bad depression versus the good depression. But the truth is that some people have bereavement that leads to clinical depression and suicidality and losing 40 pounds and not coming out of it, whereas other people have some months of grief or even longer periods, but they're able to resume their lives. So I wish there were a bright line we could draw

between the pathological and non-pathological, but there really isn't one. This conversation makes me think of, and I don't know whose quote it was, who said this, but they said, sadness is where everything means, you know, something or too much, and depression is when nothing really means anything. And I've always thought that's an interesting point. But I do think that at least in my life, my I suspect I wrestled with depression far before I ever knew it, because, you know, I was a substance abuse addict and had lots of other things. But I do remember that the kickoff for me of what I would consider the major depression in my adulthood was there was a period of deep grief for the loss of a marriage. And I realized that there was just a period of time where I went like, this isn't getting better. Like I'm just not getting better.

And I don't feel maybe as sad about that as I used to, but I still feel like shit, right? Like, and that was when I was like, all right, I think I need to seek more treatment. Because to your point, that triggered what appeared to be of a natural system doesn't mean that we should just wallow in our depression and wait for it to tell us wisdom. I've been, in some ways, I would say that I was a victim of a severe depression. Now, treatments were not terribly helpful for me, and I had to suffer for a long time. And it was hard for me to tell what the meaning of the depression was. But now, many decades later, I don't think it's too strong to say that I feel grateful that I had that experience. And I do think it led me to a better place, led me to be a better person, led me to a totally different career. I believe that we should look for answers,

we should look for clarity. But I respect the primitive nature of depression and our limited ability to decipher its meaning. And that requires sometimes the kind of patience that most people don't have. And so what have you learned over the last several years about ways that people can work with depression more skillfully? I think you and I very much agree on one common point, which is that, you know, walking into a doctor's office and just getting a medication and leaving it. That is probably not the best approach. I mean, I, my depression has responded to what I would, you know, I often jokingly refer to as like throwing the kitchen sink at it, right? Like I worked on it on multiple levels, you know, medicine, therapy, exercise, eating right. Are there any other things besides

sort of those that sort of the well-known things that you have learned maybe since you published the book about other useful approaches to depression? I think that there's both incredible good news and incredible bad news. The bad news is that so many different things can trigger depression, and we've talked about a number of them. But the good news is that many of those same things, if skillfully played out, can be levers to move mood in a more positive direction. So you've mentioned already a number of those levers, but cognitive change is an important one. So having a different relationship with your thoughts, with your negative thoughts, being able to reinterpret them more skillfully is one additional lever. And we haven't mentioned interpersonal factors. So what friends you have, how supportive they are, what you do with them,

having things to look forward to with other people is another important buffering factor. Having even someone to talk to about your depression. I mean, depression is so profoundly isolating in our culture, unfortunately. Even now, when stigma is starting to erode to a degree, when people get depressed, their strong urge is to withdraw. They feel misunderstood. It's very hard for them to reach out to others. They feel that others won't understand them. And they're depriving themselves of a really important lever. So then all the lifestyle factors that you mentioned that I think are a bit unsung as anti-depressive heroes. And the list really goes on because I think there will also be individualistic antidotes. That's one reason I'm so interested in this research on flourishing,

because I think what we're going to learn is that there's a multitude of different ways that people find a way out of depression. And I'm eager to meet those people. Maybe they listen to your show. I think some of them do, for sure. Because I think that we need to learn from these wise people. Now, it may not all be specific things that people are doing. I mean, we can't neglect the possibility that some of this has to do with you have lucky genes. You're just an intelligent person who can figure things out. But I think it has to be true that some of getting out of depression is within human control in the things that we can change or modify. Right. I think that's such an interesting

question that I've been pondering lately, which is really how much control do we have over this stuff? And I think that the most honest answer I've been able to come up with is some, right? Like, I do think that by doing certain things, we can improve our condition. But to what degree I think depends on so many other factors about, like you said, about genes or previous trauma or lots of other things. But it does seem that there is some role for the actions that we take to make some degree of improvement. Yes. My message, one of my big messages is that it's never too late. So someone out there may have had depression that recurred three or four times, or they might be in the middle of a chronic depression. And they may think that I've tried everything and nothing has worked and I have no control. has worked and I have no control. And depression does tap, does sap your patience. But the more we learn, the more we see that given enough time, people can discover. And if it's a tried and true

method or if it's a unique method, that's why we need these models of individuals who found a way out, because I think there's a lot we can learn from them. And even if it is, and it surely is, less than 100% control, even if it's 10% control, for someone who feels that they have no control, they would kill for 10%. Thank you. with anything in life is it's like well i tried this and it didn't work for me and then i try it again another time and it works for me great or i tried this thing and it's working for me but it doesn't work for me anymore so now i need to find something else to try. But I think that your message that comes through with this is that there is hope at the end of this. There is hope at the end of this. And it's just the truth. It's not wishful thinking. And the other thing that I really want people to appreciate that some people are fortunate enough to find a way out is not a negative reflection on any of the people who are still in depression's grip.

This does not mean that it's your fault. We get it. We have this culture that's always trying to lay blame. Who's responsible? Whose fault is it? And that's just a nonsensical way of thinking, especially about something that is as elusive and as poorly understood as depression. So we try to get our baby footholds on depression and we try to cut it down to size. So the fact that some people are doing better and learning to live with depression and living better afterwards, are doing better and learning to live with depression and living better afterwards,

I see as hope, but not as diminishing or degrading or debasing people who are still struggling with depression. These are all really, these are real and important experiences of depression that are, that must be respected, you know, sort of in and of themselves. Yeah, I often think in some ways we've gone from the depression model or idea of, well, you just, you know, shake it off or pull yourself up by your bootstraps. We've evolved that to a slightly more nuanced version of, well, are you exercising? Are you eating right? Are you, you know, that, that again, we can turn that into our fault. And so, you know, I think that's such a interesting line to have to walk as a person, which is, you know, on one hand, am I really trying

as best I am able to all these things that I know might help and at the same time, not being too hard on myself when I'm unable to do those things that I know might help. And at the same time, not being too hard on myself when I'm unable to do those things because of depression. Exactly. I would also redefine success. So, you know, if you're in a crushing depression that's leaving you unable to work or think or have a thought that you feel is a useful thought

that's your personality, victory is... Hey y'all, I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls, and I'm thrilled to invite you to our January Jumpstart series for the third year running. All January, I'll be joined by inspiring guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations. We're talking about topics like building community and creating an inner and outer glow. I always tell people that when you buy a handbag, it doesn't cover a childhood scar. You know, when you buy a jacket, it doesn't reaffirm what you love about the hair you were told not to love. So when I think about

beauty, it's so emotional because it starts to go back into the archives of who we were, how we want to see ourselves and who we know ourselves to be and who we can be. So a little bit of past, present and future, all in one idea, soothing something from the past. And it doesn't have to be always an insecurity. It can be something that you love. All to help you start 2025 feeling empowered and ready. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's more comfortable. So, you know, it's incremental gains. So you want to continually evolve so that you're in a better place. It's not like one day you go from having a severe

chronic depression to flourishing. You're going to have to pass through some intermediate states. But I think the important point is that you can be confident that applying what we know and being patient, you're likely to end up in a better place than you are now if you're not satisfied with where you are. But also realizing that a lot of people, and this is maybe not appreciated by a lot of people, that it's not like most people are experiencing bliss 24-7. I think we have a very unrealistic idea of what people ordinarily experience and feel. And part of it is that our culture just really idealizes euphoria and these very brief-lived, kind of high-energy, fist-bump, peak states. It sells cars, and it kind of makes the world go around our pursuit of euphoria. And I'm not

against euphoria by any means, but I think that we get into trouble when we think that it's normal to be experiencing these things for eight hours a day. That's not going to happen. Right. And I think you touched on something important there too, which is that temperament plays a big role in this and that some of us are more inclined towards high energy states or low energy states or a happiness that's more intense versus a satisfaction that's a little bit more low key, but contentment. I mean, that we can't get rid of some of our basic temperament. And we wouldn't want to. I mean, I think that we need our more introverted people. We need our people who are maybe more reserved to don't always look on the bright side. They add value that,

you know, life would be boring if everyone were the same. And I do think that some of those, we could say they're more depressive temperaments, more depressedogenic temperaments, that they do tend to be devalued as, you know, this is a killjoy type person. But these people are often very insightful and funny and interesting. We need to see their value. I never thought that the goal should be to erase anything depressive or depressing. I feel like we need to expand the possibilities for people and not have people feel bad about what their temperament is. Right. And that sort of circles us back to some of the early conversation we had as you, as we talked through these factors of wellbeing that really only a couple of them have to do with

emotional state. And, and so many more of them have to do with meaning and purpose and autonomy and growth and relationship with others. And so there's so many more factors to a life well lived than just whether you're in a upbeat mood. Understand why, you know, when people ask how you're doing this first, you're not talking about purpose and value, but you're talking about, you know, you're feeling good. You're happy. That's the shorthand that people use. I understand that. It's not really as rich as the reality. Right.

Yeah, you don't want to be that person. How are you doing? Well, on six of the nine facets. Exactly. Out of six out of nine facets, I'm doing very well. Let's, we're near the end of our time, but let's wrap up a little bit with an organization that you founded called Depression, or helped to found called Depression Army. And I'm wondering

if you could tell us a little bit about that organization and some of the things that maybe you've learned by being part of it. Sure. So I've been on all sides of depression, as I mentioned. I've struggled with depression and I've been a scientist. And I've been on all sides of depression, as I mentioned. I've struggled with depression, and I've been a scientist. And I've been hankering to be more involved in the dialogue about depression in our culture. And so Depression Army really is a vehicle to have a more interesting conversation. So we have a website, which has a blog, and we have all the various social media flavors, whether you like Facebook or Tumblr or Instagram or Twitter. But the purpose really is, much like we've been talking about, to reflect on the experience of depression. And I think that in addition to being a dreaded, terrible,

frightening, horrible experience, depression is also very interesting. It's an interesting experience, and it's also a transformative experience. And so I think that in Depression Army, we're playing around or thinking about depression identity. What does it mean to have a depression? What does it mean for your future? What does it mean for your relationships? And we don't pretend to have the answer for this. Our purpose is to inspire thought and be provocative and to try to hang on to the two sides. So both the hope, the possibility

of recovery, but also the reality that so many people are still struggling because those are both really important parts of depression. I agree. I think being able to paint that picture is so important that there is hope. And if you're right in the middle of it, boy, that hurts. There is hope, and if you're right in the middle of it, boy, that hurts. And from your working with Depression Army, is there anything you feel like that has taught you or opened up to you or any particular stories from that that come to mind for you? What really jumps out to me is the universality of depression, that it's observed across cultures, it's observed across developmental ages, whether you're a man, whether you're a woman. And it's one of the most universal human experiences, and yet it's a kind of experience that we struggle to talk about. So I find it, though it's not science, it's cultural dialogue, I find it very stimulating and helps me think about the science, what we need to study, what we need to understand from

a systematic perspective. So Depression Army, in one sense, it's a way that I'm trying to give back to the community and reaching out, but it's also giving me a tremendous amount. It's also helping me process my own depression. platform, because depression for me was something terrible and unspeakable and frightening, and that we could do something that in any way either eases people's pain or helps them understand what they're going through, helps them build their identity. I think if it does good, that makes me feel good, but it also really helps me. And on a personal level, you referenced this depression that you went through. Do you consider that sort of fully behind you? No, because I'm a human being.

So if, God forbid, something terrible happened in my life. If I had that kind of shock, I would expect that it could be a trigger to significant depression. But at the same time, I do feel like I have built up a lot of armor that really helps me contain the beast. I'm not saying it's like a furry dog that I can take out and pet, but it's been defanged. It tries to bite me and it doesn't break the skin anymore. But it's always possible that I could be in some really compromised state because I'm being battered and my armor would be overwhelmed. So I think no one should be so arrogant to say, it's great, we have all these celebrities now that are talking about their depression. And in some ways, it's inspiring this dialogue about recovery. So Dwayne Johnson,

The Rock, and J.K. Rowling, and it's great to have them as part of the conversation. But I look at them and I see that they're doing really well. But are they immune? Could they never have depression again? Seems unlikely. But they've obviously figured some stuff out. And we're lucky to have them on this earth. And we should learn from them. And I guess I don't think anyone's immune.

I think that's what I'm saying. I love that analogy or metaphor you just made of like that old metaphor of depression is the black dog, right? It's been defanged to a certain extent and it bites, but it doesn't break the skin. That's a great analogy and actually speaks to kind of how I feel about my relationship with it. Like, well, it's still kind of there. I see you guys around from time to time, and maybe I get bit by it. But again, it doesn't break the skin, has got savage fangs and you better run if it's coming to something that's been domesticated. It's still not human and it still, you know, maybe has a bad day, but you can live with it. You can coexist with it. I think that's the idea. That's the reality. People do coexist with it.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's a great term for what I was sort of stumbling over earlier was this idea of coexistence, that life with it is still entirely possible. Back to the facets, you may not have all nine of those down, but you can have enough of them that the whole thing is a coexisting relationship. Yeah, and there are a lot of nice dogs. Lots of nice dogs. Love the dogs. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come on again. I will continue to follow your work and, you know, I think you're doing great stuff. And I think this latest direction of looking at what people who have come out the other side of depression and are thriving, you know, what they're doing,

I think is such an interesting area for research. And I really hope that it proves fruitful and gets some traction. Well, thanks. I'd be grateful if I could come on in another five years and talk about what we found. Hopefully, we'll have some interesting things by then to report on. Yep. Anytime the offer is standing, if you've got something interesting about depression, we'll be glad to talk about it.

Well, that sounds great. All right. Thanks so much, Jonathan. Have a great evening. All right. Thank you. Take care. Bye. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head over to oneyoufeed.net slash support.

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