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

psychologytoday.com

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

#11

Post by b0rsuk »

frereubu wrote: post #7
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 perha…

I remember reading an article like that. Also, it's a bit of a meme that if depression was 100% harmful then it would already be eliminated by evolution. I mean why shouldn't people prone to depression die off?

Don't make a mistake, I'm still working on improving my life and uncovering the root causes. It is a silent thief of life.

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

#13

Post by raducu »

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…

Because this actually IS the prevailing view, but it is not really actionable.

What is the alternative to drugs?

A real advantage of depression is you won't challenge authority so you'll be more likely to appease the Alpha members of the group.

So what?

How would this help a doctor treat a mental health patient?

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

#14

Post by impendia »

frereubu wrote: post #7
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 perha…

I don't know who conducted the original study, but I remember that Martin Seligman opened his book Learned Optimism with a discussion of an experiment exactly along these lines.

Two groups of people -- a group of clinically depressed people, and a control group -- were asked to operate some apparatus that was programmed to fail a certain percent of the time. They were then asked to estimate how much actual control they had over the apparatus.

The control group consistently overestimated, while the depressed people were spot on.

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

#15

Post by kbos87 »

This feels so obvious. 30 years from now, we might very well look back at these labels we applied to people, implying something is wrong with them for responding to their negative circumstances, and feel like we were living in the dark ages.

When we see historic rises in mental disorders following an external event like the coronavirus pandemic, is it not something we should reasonably expect? I can accept that some sliver of the population has an unreasonable reaction to something like this, but for most people, it isn’t a problem in their head as modern psychology tends to imply.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/health/2...

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

#16

Post by leto_ii »

Here's a personal anecdote of the moment when I realized that perhaps mental disorders are not disorders at all:

A few years ago I had a job that made me deeply unhappy. The unhappiness came about gradually, but in my last year there it was overwhelming. In my last year on the job I spent a good chunk of my working hours holding back feelings of deep frustration and anger over how things were progressing and over how I was being treated by my boss and by a few coworkers. At times I considered going to see a therapist, but in the end I opted for a more direct solution - I spontaneously quit the job.

Even though my financial situation became a lot less secure, my state of mind improved greatly. I started sleeping better, some stress related physical symptoms went away, I started working on personal projects that I had been neglecting etc.

I'm pretty sure that, had I gone to the therapist, I would have been diagnosed with some sort of depressive disorder and probably would have been prescribed some sort of medication. I probably would have still been in the job I actually hated and I wouldn't have made as much progress in understanding what I actually wanted from my life.

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

#17

Post by arethuza »

kbos87 wrote: post #15

This feels so obvious. 30 years from now, we might very well look back at these labels we applied to people, implying something is wrong with them for responding to their negative circumstances, and feel like we were living in the dark ages. When we see historic rises in mental disorders following an external event like the coronavirus pandemic, is it not something we should reasonably expect? I can accept that some…

I remember reading about the first expeditions to the Artic by the Royal Navy in the 19th century - they initially found some sailors exhibiting the symptoms of being drunk and would punish them harshly. It took them a while to realise that the symptoms of severe hypothermia and drunkenness are actually pretty similar....

See: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/878082.Barrow_s_Boys

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

#18

Post by ddorian43 »

leto_ii wrote: post #16

Here's a personal anecdote of the moment when I realized that perhaps mental disorders are not disorders at all: A few years ago I had a job that made me deeply unhappy. The unhappiness came about gradually, but in my last year there it was overwhelming. In my last year on the job I spent a good chunk of my working hours holding back feelings of deep frustration and anger over how things were progressing and over how…

Sorry man, the therapist can't prescribe. You are free to read "The body keeps the score" to understand why everything you wrote is wrong/false.

To the downvoters:

Things in life are in different levels. Your knee may hurt a little, you may tear 1 ACL in your knee, you tear all ligaments in your knee, your knee got chopped off, etc etc.

Going to the doctor, doesn't 100% mean your knee will go into surgery. Sometimes, you may just need a professional consult, etc etc.

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

#19

Post by sudofail »

Couldn't a person have a biological makeup that predisposes them to experience greater or lesser adversity? If mental disorders are adaptive responses, that doesn't seem to rule out that some people may be more prone to interpreting situations as adversarial.

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

#20

Post by silveroriole »

impendia wrote: post #14
frereubu wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 perha…

I don't know who conducted the original study, but I remember that Martin Seligman opened his book Learned Optimism with a discussion of an experiment exactly along these lines. Two groups of people -- a group of clinically depressed people, and a control group -- were asked to operate some apparatus that was programmed to fail a certain percent of the time. They were then asked to estimate how much actual control th…

A try it yourself experiment: simply start giving accurate time estimates to project managers, and see how long it takes them to call you a pessimist :)
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