Sometimes people are reluctant to disclose the reason for their depression because it is embarrassing or sensitive, they find it painful, they believe they must soldier on and ignore them, or they have difficulty putting their complex internal struggles into words.

But depression is nature’s way of telling you that you’ve got complex social problems that the mind is intent on solving. Therapies should try to encourage depressive rumination rather than try to stop it, and they should focus on trying to help people solve the problems that trigger their bouts of depression. (There are several effective therapies that focus on just this.) It is also essential, in instances where there is resistance to discussing ruminations, that the therapist try to identify and dismantle those barriers.

When one considers all the evidence, depression seems less like a disorder where the brain is operating in a haphazard way, or malfunctioning. Instead, depression seems more like the vertebrate eye—an intricate, highly organized piece of machinery that performs a specific function.

Are you a scientist? Have you recently read a peer-reviewed paper that you want to write about? Then contact Mind Matters co-editor Gareth Cook, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist at the Boston Globe, where he edits the Sunday Ideas section.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Paul W. Andrews is a post-doctoral fellow at Virginia Commonwealth University. He did his PhD in behavioral ecology at the University of New Mexico, Department of Biology. His research focuses on understanding human mental health traits, particularly depression and suicidal behavior, from an evolutionary perspective. J. Anderson Thomson, Jr., is a psychiatrist in private practice in Charlottesville, Virginia and a staff psychiatrist at University of Virginia Student Health's Counseling and Psychological Services and at the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy. He received his B.A. from Duke University (1970), his M.D. from the University of Virginia (1974) and did his adult psychiatry training at U.Va. (1974-77). Ten years ago Robert Wright's book, The Moral Animal, opened up the vista of evolutionary psychology, changed the way he viewed life and altered how he practices psychiatry.