Dr. Stanley Goldstein - Author and Psychologist

While the pain of anxiety and depression cannot be denied, neither can it be avoided since they are part of the human condition, enabling us to become more fully human, more of who we can be.

Anxiety signals impending danger, actual or not, thus attempting to protect one from harm. An unrealistic danger indicates that an unconscious conflict, which may involve anything, is causing distress. Perhaps the desire for intimacy conflicting with its fear because of early life experiences, these being the bedrock of the adult personality.

 

Depression indicates a "depressing" of feelings for one of three reasons: being "stuck" because of an inability to decide what to do; sensing that one has deep problems and giving up; or having unsuccessfully attempted to emotionally reach a parent during early childhood, this creating feelings of inadequacy that can persist into adulthood and affect functioning.

Making significant life changes require confronting the unconscious conflicts which can afflict us all for these too are part of being human.

There are few more painful experiences than an agitated depression: the combination of pervading anxiety and deep depression. Which can result following such common trauma as divorce or unemployment. Or even apparently nothing since, as I never tire of saying, the unconscious is very powerful and one must respect its power.

Because feelings reflect both mind and body, they cannot be separated. Thus does remaining in bed make depression worse and incoherent flight increase panic. So when altering the body through constructive activity, as by involving oneself in a work or household chore, the agitated depression lifts and, sometime later, its unconscious cause (if one exists) may surface.

Postpartum depression is a term which has usually been applied to mothers. And who can wonder at this for, after the birth of her child, the mother’s life irrevocably changes. Her first priority must now be the welfare of her child who is wholly dependent upon her for its continued existence.

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