August 2020 – Experimentation: The Whats and Hows (Depression Primer #2)

This is the second in a series of articles concerning the basic principles for healing depression. Last month (link) concerned the practice and purpose of gratitude, and this month will look at the importance of working with depression from an experimental mode. This means that, when trying to influence depression (changing negative thinking, being active rather than de-motivated, etc.), we set up those attempts in our own minds as experiments. Basically, “What happens when I do X?”, which itself acts as an antidote to the dogmatic assertions of depression.

May you all be safe, supported, related, and striving towards wisdom in these amazing times.

Experimentation: The Whats and Hows (Depression Primer #2)

A client of mine recently asked about whether, when feeling a surge of depression, they should go do exercise. “Well, it’s worth experimenting with.” They paused, and then smiled, and said, “Right, of course you would say that.”

And they’re right, because as a therapist, I rarely say anything prescriptive anymore (unless something is clearly problematic). This is something I’ve learned over time, in focusing on depression, that as comforting as clear if-then’s would be, overcoming this wild mood entails taking the set principles (those do exist) and then running experiments to see which work for you, and when. Believe me, if there were a plug-and-play cure for depression, I would be the first one in line. Unfortunately, there simply isn’t. (See here for another article on experiments.)

What are the “set principles” then, that unlike “set rules”, do exist? Basically, they are defined by the exact opposite of what the rules of depression are. So:

(If you want more on the basics, see these audio recordings, and this article.)

And these are absolutely true: if you’re going to heal, even cure depression, you must do these things. But clearly these principles tell you very little about what and how to do them. “Ok, so yes, engage body, got it. So should I do weight training, or cardio? Which is better?” The frustrating-but-best answer is, “I don’t know, you’ll have to experiment.”

There’re two main reasons for this, both very important. First is that how a particular principle plays out in your particular life is, well, particular. Unique. No one else can know it in advance. At the basic level, maybe you’ve had an injury that makes weightlifting dangerous. That, then, is pretty simple to rule out. But what if you had a particularly oppressive gym coach in junior high, who loved to make kids feel small and weak? In your case, a general rule of “get exercise” could very likely backfire, and act as a trigger that worsens the depression. Does that mean don’t exercise? No, because the principle still stands. But you may need to have a workaround, such as doing non-triggering physical work like yoga (no one knew about yoga when you were in school), or perhaps you do running, but work psychologically to install a better, personal coach, and kick the historical one out of your head.

The second reason, following off of the first, is that cookie-cutter strategies can actually be dangerous, in a literal sense. Since depression is already telling you that you+life+future are already futile and worthless, and therefore you need to get small and submit to that “truth”, to attempt to contradict depression is already loaded up with an extra sense of “failure”. For someone who normally goes running and feels good afterwards, to have an off run some morning will feel odd, curious, maybe a bit disappointing. But it won’t feel threatening, or negating. For someone with depression, to not treat the run as an experiment is (likely) to be attached to it as a solution to the depression. When it does not work to make them feel better (not to mention “get rid of” the depression), then the interpretation of that “failure” is already installed and ready to go. “See, pointless, just stop trying,” depression says. With that, the rope around your leg tightens, and with depression that can deepen into suicidal thinking, those failures to conquer can become lethal.

So, for these reasons, healing from depression must employ experimentation. Were it not so…but, alas, it is.

So, that’s the what, now for the how.

Experiments are set up in the format, “What happens when I do X?” There are four parts to this: switching into the experimental mode; defining the experiment; running the experiment; and then assessing the outcome/feedback from the experiment.

1. The experimental mode: The essence of this mode is information seeking, not change. You are going from problem-solving, or assertion of power, or relating qua relating, to a mode of gathering information via enacting some change.
2. Defining the experiment: This requires you determine what actually is being tested, essentially the research question. “Does running for a mile in the morning cause my depression to increase, decrease, or no change?” The morning mile run is the given, and then the variable is change in depression intensity.
3. Run the experiment: This is where you actually execute on the experiment. This is where you go run for a mile in the morning.
4. Assess the outcome: Then you have to reflect on what happened (“What happens when…?”) when you ran the experiment. You might spitball it, or you might use a scale (say, 1-10) to define the change, and from that you come up with a conclusion: Did help, did not help, not clear and needs more testing.

Whether the experiment went the way you were expecting, or hoping, is not important if you’ve gotten yourself (more or less) into the experimental mode. When experimenting, there’s no success or failure, just learning. Which both benefits you from engaging in reality (after all, it’s reality that’s giving you the feedback) and giving you information about the best way to approach your depression, and it avoids the dangers of “failing” at an attempt and then having depression roar in to say, “See, I told you so.”

So, this is the how, and though experimentation is essential, I know full well it’s not easy, particularly the further into depression you are. Depression will tell you that the experimental mode is as futile as the rest of it. It will tell you that when you tried to experiment, and got disappointed anyway, that it’s just like it’s been trying to point out, utterly worthless. But that’s just what depression does, over and over. When you keep experimenting, keep returning to it from the buffeting depression is giving you, you’re learning about your exact self and how to apply the principles to your particular life, as well as training in the experimental mode itself. Both of which are very powerful anti-depressants.