The Healthiness of Depression

The feeling associated with giving up something loved – or at least something that is part of ourselves and familiar – is depression. Scott Peck in The Roadless Traveled says that to spur growth a proportionate amount of “the old self” must be given up.  Giving up or loss of the old self is an integral part of the process of mental and spiritual growth, depression is a normal and basically healthy phenomenon.  The unconscious in it’s wisdom knows that “the way things used to be” is no longer tenable or constructive that the process of growing and giving up is begun on an unconscious level and depression is experienced.

Depression is the signaling that major change is required for successful and evolutionary adaptation.  When we experience crises that are problematic and painful is that in successfully working our way through them we must give up cherished motions and old way of doing and looking at things.  We tend to cling to the old patterns of thinking and behaving, thus failing to negotiate any crises, to truly grow up and to experience the joyful sense of rebirth that accompanies the successful transition into great maturity.