Dr. Stanley Goldstein - Author and Psychologist

Though painful and feared, anxiety and depression (the "depressing" of feelings) are instinctive survival and developmental mechanisms of the human condition. Both can indicate the presence of danger, external or internal. With anxiety it might be hearing a close-by noise while traveling a crime-ridden neighborhood alone at night; with depression it could be the sensing of an impending long feared feeling for intimacy or self-assertion. A common problem is when the primary goal is to avoid the anxiety or depression rather than interpreting its reason. Which, admittedly, is not easy since emotional conflict is part of human personality development and distinguishing actual from unrealistic danger can be difficult since the unconscious is powerful.
Normal anxiety and depression associated with healthy grieving, as after the death of a loved one or the loss of a bodily function due to accident or illness, are exceptions to these statements.