People with depression often lack the energy or concentration to read chapter after chapter, and may experience an audiobook as less of a challenge.
So I’m especially delighted to announce the publication (if ‘publication’ is the word) of an audiobook version of ‘Growing from Depression’, narrated by the very talented Alexander Doddy.
The audiobook is available through Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.
You can listen to a short sample chapter, The Search for Meaning, by clicking here and then on ‘Audible Sample’ under the cover icon.
Self-deception is the price that we pay for our sanity.
This self-deception holds us together by shielding us from truths that threaten to undermine our sense of self, or ego integrity. A person on the verge of ego disintegration makes frenzied use of self-deceptive ego defences. The resulting loss of perspective or change in function can in itself count as mental disorder, while the ultimate capitulation of the ego defences leads in particular into the depressive position.
By removing us from fearsome truths, ego defences not only blind us to those truths and thus to reality, but also confuse and constrict our thinking. Their partial or temporary failure can lead to a range of psychological disturbances including anxiety, anger, irritability, insomnia, and nightmares. The more they are challenged, the more exaggerated, compulsive, and inflexible they become. The person is reduced in scope and ability, with little left of the capacities for consciousness, spontaneity, and intimacy that define, elevate, and glorify the human condition.
A vicious cycle takes hold: the more constrained a person becomes, the less he is able to reason; and the less he is able to reason, the less he is able to overcome his constraints. For the philosopher Aristotle, the distinctive function of human beings is to reason, and, therefore, the happiness of human beings is to lead a life of reason. Reason begets freedom, and freedom begets reason, and both together beget knowledge of the truth, which is wisdom, which is the highest happiness.
Once, upon being asked to name the most beautiful of all things, the philosopher Diogenes the Cynic replied parrhesia, which means ‘free speech’ or ‘full expression’. Diogenes used to stroll through Athens in broad daylight brandishing an ignited lamp. Whenever curious people stopped to ask what he was doing, he would reply, ‘I am just looking for a human being.’
Diogenes looking for a human being.
Self-deception, which is often rooted in the unconscious or semi-conscious fear of falling short of familial and societal standards, and in the fear of death, is a defining part of our human nature. By recognising its various forms in ourselves and reflecting upon them, we may be able to disarm them and, even, in some cases, to employ and enjoy them. This self-knowledge, which I call super- or hyper-sanity, opens up a whole new world before us, rich in beauty, subtlety, and connection, and frees us not only to take the best out of it, but also to give it back the best of ourselves, and, in so doing, to fulfil our potential as human beings.
Reasoning is but one route to self-knowledge or hyper-sanity. The other route—more painful, destructive, and uncertain—is mental disorder, or ‘madness’, which involves the failure or complete breakdown of the ego defences. Unlike medical, or physical, disorders, mental disorders are not just problems. If successfully navigated, they can also present opportunities. Simply acknowledging this can empower people to heal themselves and, much more than that, to grow from their experiences. At the same time, mental disorders should not be romanticised or left unattended simply because they may or may not predispose to problem solving, personal development, or creativity. Rather than being medicalised or romanticised, mental disorders, or mental dis-eases, should be understood as nothing less or more than what they are, a cry from our deepest human nature.
Both mental disorder and hyper-sanity place us outside society, making us seem ‘mad’ to the mainstream. Both attract scorn and derision, but whereas mental disorder is distressing and disabling, hyper-sanity is liberating and empowering.
Ultimately, standing out is the price we pay for being outstanding.
Phenomena derives from the Greek meaning ‘things that appear’, and phenomenology can be defined as the direct examination and description of phenomena as they are consciously experienced.
Pioneered by philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), phenomenology involves paying attention to objects and their relations so that they begin to reveal themselves, not as we take them to be, but as they truly appear to the naked human consciousness, shorn of superimposed theories, preconceptions, abstractions, interpretations, and emotional associations.
Unlike many other philosophical approaches, phenomenology is not a theory or set of theories, but a formal method for accessing bare human experience as it unfolds, moment by moment. It enables us to study not only the phenomena themselves, but also, by extension, the very structures of human experience and consciousness.
Phenomenology is not quite the same as mindfulness. Mindfulness, which derives from Buddhist spiritual practice, aims at increasing our awareness and acceptance of incoming thoughts and feelings, and so the flexibility or fluidity of our responses, which become less like unconscious reactions and more like conscious reflections. In contrast, phenomenology is more explicitly outward-looking.
In the early 20th century, psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) brought the method of phenomenology into the field of clinical psychiatry to describe and delineate the symptoms of mental disorder. This so-called descriptive psychopathology created something of a scientific basis for the practice of psychiatry, with Jaspers emphasising that symptoms of mental disorder should be diagnosed according to their form rather than their content. This means, for example, that a belief is a delusion not because it is deemed implausible by a person in a position of authority, but because it conforms to the definition, or phenomenology, of a delusion, that is, ‘a strongly held belief that is not amenable to logic or persuasion and that is out of keeping with its holder’s background or culture.’
Unfortunately, Jaspers and others rather overlooked or underplayed phenomenology’s healing and protective potentials. Potentially phenomenological endeavours such as writing, drawing, gardening, bird watching, and wine tasting remove us from our tired and tortured heads and return us to the world that we came from, reconnecting us with something much greater and higher than our personal problems and preoccupations. Phenomenology can, quite literally, bring us back to life. In The Philosophy of Existence (1938), Jaspers himself described it as ‘a thinking that, in knowing, reminds me, awakens me, brings me to myself, transforms me’. To describe is to know, to know is to understand, and to understand is to own, to enjoy, and even, to some degree, control. Like mindfulness, phenomenology is a balm not only for depression and anxiety, but also for boredom, loneliness, greed. selfishness, apathy, alienations, and any number of human ills.
Magnificent Hummingbird (Male), Santa Rita Lodge, Madera Canyon, Near Green Valley, Arizona
If that were not enough, phenomenological practice also offers a number of other benefits and advantages. Wine tasters, for example, often say that wine blind tasting enables them to:
set a standard of objectivity,
test, stretch, and develop their senses,
apply their judgement,
recall old memories,
compare their analysis with that of their peers,
discuss the wine and learn about it, and about wine in general,
forge meaningful human relationships, and
imbibe the wine with the respect and consideration that it deserves.
In refining their senses and aesthetic judgement, wine tasters become much more conscious of the richness not only of wine but also of other potentially complex beverages such as tea, coffee, and spirits, and, by extension, the aromas and flavours in food, the scents in the air, and the play of light in the world.
For life is consciousness, and consciousness is life.
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