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Depression: Coaching, Medication, Therapy or All Three?
by Susan Dunn, MA Clinical Psychology, The EQ Coach
I’m going to jump right into this controversy because it keeps coming up in my coaching practice. My specialty is Emotional Intelligence. I don’t think we’re combatant as much as confused.
If you suffer from depression can you “treat it” with Emotional Intelligence, exercise, diet, and willpower?
The answer to that question is “it depends.” My understanding of depression is that you don’t “have it” – which makes us think it’s the result of a loss, or betrayal, or sad feelings, but that you “suffer from it” – it’s a lack of serotonin, the “feel good” chemical. Either we aren’t manufacturing enough serotonin, or are not able to utilize what we have.
This explains why there’s such a thing as an “agitated depression,” where the person has a lot of restless energy, instead of – as we expect – sleeping all the time or having no energy.
Antidepressants allow us to “uptake” and make better use of the serotinin we already have, but it doesn’t manufacture more. L-Tryptophan, an amino acid, is the only substance that manufactures serotonin. It’s present in some foods such as tuna, turkey and avocado.
It’s predicted that each of us will have at least one major episode of depression in our lives. It’s getting more common, and some say it’s epidemic.
Some think it’s wrong to take medication and won’t see a physician. Others have been prescribed medication and won’t take it, or don’t take it regularly. In fact a psychiatrist here in town refers clients to me for what he calls “compliance coaching” – so they’ll stay on their medication, while learning to manage their feelings better, through Emotional Intelligence. Sometimes therapy is prescribed as well as coaching.
You can do a lot with your brain and your chemistry as we learned from the research of Candace Pert, Ph.D., who wrote “Molecules of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine.” (http://www.amazon.com/ ) You can learn to “talk” to your body, to your brain, and improve your condition in some cases.
Testing at the University of Wisconsin Affective Neuroscience Lab also confirms that what the Tibetan lamas do accounts for real changes in their brains that make them feel better – Nirvana. Mindfulness. Peace.
WHY THE RELUCTANCE?
There are side effects. However, according to Mark Drogin, MD, Prozac, one antidepressant, has been in use for 20 years now, and is considered side-effect free. (Ask your physician.)
Add to this the machinations of the pharmaceutical industry in the US which seldom tests drugs against one another, head-on, for efficacy and cost, but only against placebos. This determines if they’re “safe” and if they do something more than a placebo, but not if they perform better than what’s already on the market.
According to an editorial in the New York Times, “That leaves patients and doctors to rely mostly on intuition, trial and error, or the salesmanship of the drug makers.” Pharmaceutical companies typically promote the latest, and it isn’t necessarily the best, or even better. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/27/opinion/27WED3.html?th.
WHY THE NON-COMPLIANCE?
What my clients say
When we take an antidepressant, the initial reaction is that we feel “different,” and since WE ARE OUR EMOTIONS, this can mean you don’t feel “like yourself.” And even if “feeling like yourself” means being miserable, it has its attraction.
Some people report it feels weird to have the same things going on but to feel good, and upbeat, not sad and discouraged. They’d rather return to their comfort zone and former perception of reality, even if they were miserable.
It’s confusing to be in a traffic jam one day and have road rage, then take an antidepressant, and 6 weeks later be in a similar traffic jam and be humming a happy tune.
One client told me she thought it was “too easy,’ that she should be “doing something” about her problem, not “popping a pill.” She didn’t feel “virtuous.”
Anne told me she “ought” to be able to control her own feelings and not have to rely on a medication. Never mind that what she’d been doing hadn’t been working for her; she was determined to do it more, longer, and harder.
Bill told me when he was prescribed Prozac because of his murderous rage at a contractor who sued him, that “Now I don’t want to kill him, but I don’t want to kill deer either.”
Fred told me “all I did was sleep for a year.” So many antidepressants on the market, and he stuck with one that didn’t work, not taking an active part in exploring alternatives with his physician.
The acid test is if you are able to improve your depression through exercise, diet and increasing your Emotional Intelligence. We set goals and timelines and monitor progress. All of these things work, but they can’t work against a severe deficit in the brain chemicals we call serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. And they don’t produce L-Tryptophan.
SEROTONIN DEFICIENCY SYNDROME
I find it constructive to think in terms of what some researchers have identified as a broad range of symptoms called “serotonin deficiency syndrome.” It includes depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, aggression, nervousness, obsessive-compulsive behavior and migraines.”
This is why “depression” manifests itself in different ways in different people – a hostile middle-aged woman; a grumpy old man; an aggressive acting-out teenager. Why some people sleep all day and can’t sleep at night. It’s not uncommon to have several of those symptoms in different combinations.
EQ’S ANSWER TO DEPRESSION
I go into this more in my book, “Depression: The Need to Go Within,” (http://www.webstrategies.cc/ebooklibrary.htm) showing what works and why.
EQ competencies include flexibility, and quick reality-testing. If you’ve tried to lift yourself out of a depression without success, you need to consider the relief and boost of medication. (This is not medical advice. Consult your personal physician.)
Then you can get back to the remedies I list in the ebook, including coaching. Don’t you owe it to yourself?
©Susan Dunn, MA Clinical Psychology, The EQ Coach, http://www.susandunn.cc . Susan Dunn is your EQ Coach, here to assist, inspire, support and transform your experience of yourself, your life, your relationships, your career and your world through the magic of emotional intelligence competencies (EQ). Ebook library: http://www.webstrategies.cc/ebooklibrary.htm. sdunn@susandunn.cc for FREE ezine. Call 210-496-0678 for FREE sample session.
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