Anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity: study

I'm most surprised to learn that this _isn't_ the current prevailing view in the medical profession. I am not a doctor, but it's always seemed more natural to me to view depression and anxiety as adaptive behaviours - albeit perhaps ones that can end up being triggered too far.

I read an article once (wish I could find it) that one advantage of mild depression was as sort a "call for help and support" from other embers of a close-knit social group, although I'm not sure how well-founded the claim was.

Re: Anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity: study

#5

Post by raxxorrax » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 9:53 AM UTC

framecowbird wrote: post #4

I'm most surprised to learn that this _isn't_ the current prevailing view in the medical profession. I am not a doctor, but it's always seemed more natural to me to view depression and anxiety as adaptive behaviours - albeit perhaps ones that can end up being triggered too far. I read an article once (wish I could find it) that one advantage of mild depression was as sort a "call for help and support" from other embe…

Indeed. Although many practitioners are open about it that they cannot really influence those factors, so the try to offer the best individualized solutions to for respective patients.

But to claim there are no environmental factors that might benefit depression is very likely just plain wrong. But in practice these factors are declared out of scope because neither patient nor psychologist can change those.

Of course numbing yourself down with meds has other repercussions and maybe hinders that environmental factors are considered and changed.

Re: Anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity: study

#6

Post by mlang23 » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 9:53 AM UTC

PTSD is quite obviously a response to adversity, that is already implied by the name! What am I missing here? Why is this news?

Re: Anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity: study

#7

Post by frereubu » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 9:56 AM UTC

framecowbird wrote: post #4

I'm most surprised to learn that this _isn't_ the current prevailing view in the medical profession. I am not a doctor, but it's always seemed more natural to me to view depression and anxiety as adaptive behaviours - albeit perhaps ones that can end up being triggered too far. I read an article once (wish I could find it) that one advantage of mild depression was as sort a "call for help and support" from other embe…

One thing that I learned during my psychology degrees that always stuck with me was that mildly depressed people are measurably better at judging probabilities of things happening. (Unfortunately I can't remember off the top of my head the structure of the study, or how much better they were). I wonder if that might fit into this, in that if you're mildly depressed presumably bad things are happening to you, so perhaps it's adaptive to be more realistic about your situation. Pretty hand-wavy stuff, but interesting to think about.

Re: Anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity: study

#8

Post by jon-wood » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 9:57 AM UTC

framecowbird wrote: post #4

I'm most surprised to learn that this _isn't_ the current prevailing view in the medical profession. I am not a doctor, but it's always seemed more natural to me to view depression and anxiety as adaptive behaviours - albeit perhaps ones that can end up being triggered too far. I read an article once (wish I could find it) that one advantage of mild depression was as sort a "call for help and support" from other embe…

There's a general bucketing in the modern world of all unhappiness being depression that should be treated, which I don't think really fits what's going on. There are absolutely cases where anxiety and depression are a medical issue which warrant treatment with medication, but there are also completely legitimate reasons for those conditions. If your lifestyle is one of never leaving the house, zero social contact, with the bank imminently foreclosing on your house then depression and anxiety are entirely appropriate - so long as those feelings then cause you to do something about the problem.

Re: Anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity: study

#9

Post by usgroup » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 10:00 AM UTC

heisenbit wrote: post #3

Insights from psychology today from an article originally in Forbes. About the Author: A pediatrician and writer, Dr. Escalante is on a mission...

+1 but let’s see where your comment ends up ranked in the thread at days’ end.

Re: Anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity: study

#10

Post by raducu » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 10:01 AM UTC

Besides raving on and on about ADHD, the article offers little actionable stuff, dubious reasoning and outright falsehoods at places (like the fact that antidepressants are no better than placebo).