Descamps, Marc-Alain

English

California Institute of Integral Studies libraries

International Journal ofTranspersonal StudiesVolume 22 | Issue 1 Article 111-1-2003Spirituality of DepressionMarc-Alain DescampsFrench Transpersonal AssociationFollow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/ijts-transpersonalstudiesPart of the Philosophy Commons, Psychology Commons, and the Religion CommonsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.This Special Topic Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals and Newsletters at Digital Commons @ CIIS. It has been acceptedfor inclusion in International Journal of Transpersonal Studies by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ CIIS. For more information,please contact digitalcommons@ciis.edu.Recommended CitationDescamps, M. (2003). Descamps, M.-A. (2003). Spirituality of depression. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 22(1),84–85.. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 22 (1). http://dx.doi.org/10.24972/ijts.2003.22.1.84Depression is an increasingly widespread dis-ease. For instance, over three million peopleare affected in France, and use of antidepres-sants is widespread. In Europe, it is estimated thatsome 20% of the population is or will be affected. Infact, depression is no longer considered as an individ-ual disease but rather as a “disease of civilization.”After plague and leprosy, it was tuberculosis, then inthe 19th century hysteria , and finally, in the 20th cen-tury, depression. Yet this disease is still poorly understood and vari-ous categories need to be differentiated. Here I willrefer to the subjects I have dealt with as a psychother-apist.What Is Depression?The word depression clearly involves various mean-ings and is therefore ambiguous. To start with, wehave hidden depression and masked depression. Thereare so many persons who, plucking up courage, man-age to function and face their obligations as they can,although at the cost of immense suffering. They actu-ally have a depression and are not aware of it. The con-dition is not even admitted by their family and otherrelations, who at first refer to fatigue, then speak oflaziness and ask them to make an effort and not to let go.Depression is taboo, a disease of which one doesnot speak, of which to be ashamed. One may eventu-ally ask a psychiatrist to prescribe antidepressants, thenvery soon stop taking them because of their undesir-able secondary effects. Three categories can be differentiated.1. Reversible DepressionAmong the depressions that are easier to deal withare the occupational forms, such as breakdown andburnout. Their effects are frequently not generalisedand remain restricted to the occupational domain. In breakdown, an active person suddenly loses allmotivation and no longer trusts in what he or shedoes. And one can understand how depression hasbecome a disease of civilisation as a result of the gen-eralised need to push one’s performance to the limit.Everyone has to work to the maximum at an impossi-ble pace—from the worker seeing after the passingobjects on the assembly line, up to the manager who isalways pressed to give more results. Pressure and stressincrease to the point where one collapses into a nerv-ous breakdown. The same is true of those who are devoted to goodwill, humanitarian activities, charities, or the like: thedemands and the weariness are such that, in a matterof some three to four years, one is eventually exhausted,burnt out. And so it happens that, after recovery, oneneeds to get oriented toward something else.2. Reactive DepressionIn the case of a depression induced by some causeand at an initial stage, it is much easier to get over itwith the help of a psychotherapist. But whatever thecause may be (divorce, abandonment, unemployment,death, departure of a child or a parent, aggression, fire,flood, and so forth), this may just prove the breakingelement of a depression that had long been latent.Recovery may then not be as fast as one would havewished and may require a deeper analysis.3. Depression of IdentityThe more serious depressions lead to a completegiving up: nothing has any taste and all activity isstopped. Suffering and despair are at their maximumand the trouble may even involve self-identity. The condition may be very precocious. Forinstance, anaclitic depression can appear in a newbornwhen sharply removed from her or his mother after anormal relationship, and resulting in a break of com-munication and sometimes in a refusal of life. Such a84 The International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 2003, Volume 22Spirituality of DepressionMarc-Alain DescampsFrench Transpersonal Association depressive nucleus can subsist throughout life and con-stitute the “fundamental defect.”How to Get Out of a DepressionWe need to make a distinction between losing thewill to act and losing the will to live. In manycases, I have found in my practice that what was neededwas to start all over again, to start from the beginningof life. One needs to go back to the original nursinginfant that was hurt. One can start by touching thebody, which proves and facilitates the process ofembodiment, with massages and stroking, particularlyif that was missing in childhood. It then becomes pos-sible again to walk, to swim, and run and breathe. Onecan then awaken taste through the pleasures of foodand drinking. Odors and perfumes are also somethingarchaic which reconnect us to the scents of the earth.Then follows the awakening of libido.Beauty is extremely powerful, for it is the sign ofthe eternal. If one can take pleasure again in music,painting, or dancing, this is a way out of depression.To be able to recognise beauty restores the pleasure oflife. Gazing at the sky, the trees, the rocks, and thebirds allows one to take part in the awakening of life.Changing the sense of time is essential, sincedepression is accompanied by a depreciation of time.Depressed people live in a time that is gloomy, monot-onous, void, and terribly sullen. To live every minuteas if it were the last allows one to grasp the luck of liv-ing, and understand that time implies not only theend, but also the gift of the instant to come.The Benefits of DepressionIn the end, I find it is also possible to speak of thebenefits of depression, since not everything is negative.This great suffering, this total despair, can producesomething good. Such positive potential has been noted by some,including Stanislav Grof in his notion of the spiritualemergency (Grof & Grof, 1990). Something gets startedwhich must not be opposed or stopped. A transforma-tive process is at work and at the beginning requires anew start: this is the cleaning aspect of depression. The storm or hurricane can then generate some-thing good, because a place has been made for recon-struction. To get into a depression is to refuse a way oflife that, suddenly or little by little, has becomeunbearable and even not liveable. This creative processonly needs to be prolonged and favoured in order forthe depression to be overcome and the person get tosomething new. But one needs not hurry, and instead can wait fortime to complete its work, and a new way of seeingthings to develop. Which things? The world and itsdestiny, to start with, but then especially oneself.Depression can give birth to a new being, and there-fore it can be considered as the price to pay to be ableto change.Everyone wants to avoid depression or quickly getout of it, but what if depression were to be a chance forsome?ReferencesGrof, C., & Grof, S. (1990). The stormy search for the Self. New York: Tarcher-Perigee.Correspondence regarding this article should bedirected to the author at AFT, French Transpersonal Association, 18 rue Berthollet, 75005 Paris, FranceEmail: marc-alain@descamps.orgSpecial Topic: Depression     85

Spirituality of Depression

https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1253&context=ijts-transpersonalstudies

Spirituality of Depression

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

California Institute of Integral Studies libraries