Bi-polar/depression

In the past year there has been an increase of people coming to me having already been diagnosed as being bi-polar. This is a new term to label what used to be referred to as manic-depressive. By describing a person's tendency to suffer from mood swings (one end of which is severe depression) as bi-polar the implication is that they suffer from a physiological problem. Something in their brain is misfiring…malfunctioning. This could lead to hope that some drug could fix the problem.

It's been my experience that perceiving depression as a physiological problem generally misses the real source. I can't think of anyone who has come to me suffering from any kind of depression that I have not been able to help by treating it as a psycho-somatic problem. Depression, in general, is unexpressed anger (and this anger is always experienced as a result of fear).

For example, let's imagine an eight-year-old boy whose mother and father are divorced. The father is never around and the mother is abusive in her discipline and emotionally manipulates the child. When this mother's typical treatment of her son triggers anger and resentment in him, he will probably learn that it is too risky to express his natural feelings. His mother is his only source of safety…and he might have already decided that maybe he can get her to love him more if he is compliant. As this dysfunctional relationship develops, the eight-year-old comes to "believe" that to express his anger is too dangerous (because of his fears of his mother's abandonment and/or unreasonable punishment).

Let's imagine that this boy becomes an adult and finds himself in a situation in which he is suffering from depression because he is not able to express his anger at a co-worker or his boss. He might very well assume that he is depressed because he is not able to stand up for his rights to his boss. But I would immediately suspect that there is a deeper, earlier issue at work. I want to know why he is not able to express this anger…and why he feels so badly about not being able to express it. He is not able to express his anger at his boss because he has an imprint that says it is too dangerous. This imprinted belief is dominating his conscious effort to change his life, rendering him helpless and depressed.

Also, he is not nearly as depressed because he can't confront his boss as he is because he is "re-experiencing" his childhood frustrations and fears. No wonder he can't express his feelings! He's eight years old…and very afraid. That is what imprints do to us…and that is how these beliefs take over our conscious efforts to live our lives.

Depression is unexpressed anger…anger too dangerous to express because of fearful childhood experiences that caused the individual to create defense mechanisms that could not be questioned, and, have never been questioned since the moment they were formed. My approach involves discovering what these beliefs are and eliminating their irrational application to current adult situations. This does not guarantee that the adult will make perfect decisions but that he will be able to express his feelings free of unwarranted, inappropriate fear and that he will no longer have any possibility of re-experiencing the fears of a childhood situation that can no longer possibly occur.