Way To Go, Godot!

Rose writes:

Can I get treated for depression? I’ve just been prescribed new antidepressants and sedatives and I’m really frightened but feel I have no alternative as I can’t function normally.

Thanks for writing in, Rose. Your question touches on an issue that has stirred up a great deal of controversy over the last hundred years: the “talking cure,” as Freud called psychotherapy, versus pharmacological intervention. Personally, I think that both can be very useful if applied appropriately.

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Eric Puryear writes:

A fellow law student and I were debating the current issue of terrorist interrogation, and what practices would offend anti-torture aspects of the constitution and international treaties. The question came up as to whether any practice which compelled someone to speak against their will was torture (see the UN torture definition at the top of the page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture). From a psychological perspective, what are your thoughts sir?

Photo by danny.hammontree

The definition you reference essentially says that any intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering is torture. And I think most people would generally agree. The problem is that no one seems to agree on how severe that suffering has to be. Is waterboarding severe enough? How about being tazed? Is sleep deprivation torture? Loud music? Bad food? Public humiliation? It all depends who you ask. The folks who have an interest in the torturing will usually say no, and the folks who are being tortured will probably always say yes.

I think the thing to understand here is that everyone sees themselves as the good guys. The torturer is defending god or country or freedom, and so is the recipient of the torture. The situation is hopeless. I recommend against involvement.

In my work with sufferers of chronic pain, I’ve taught hundreds of people to practice mindfulness meditation. I do this not only because mindfulness meditation is in itself an effective treatment for chronic pain, but also because it helps the practitioner to manage their thoughts and emotions more effectively. It can help you to boost your creativity and can even improve your hypnotic ability.

Mindfulness meditation is probably the simplest form of meditation. It is deceptively simple; a lot of people have difficulty understanding how doing so little can have such deep and powerful effects on well-being. In studies with headache patients practicing mindfulness meditation every day for just 20 minutes a day, the most notable psychological effect of the practice was a pervasive sense of improved control. This is a common experience for people who take up the practice of mindfulness meditation:

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On some level, most people recognize that psychological factors affect physical health. People basically seem to know, for example, that a stressful career or a ‘Type A’ personality might give them a heart attack, or that an abrasive colleague can give them a headache.

What most people aren’t fully aware of is the profound interconnection between the mind and the body. The past twenty or thirty years have seen an explosion of research on the ways that the mind and the body relate to each other. The further the research goes, in fact, the less it looks like there is a mind apart from the body, or a body apart from the mind. Everything that happens to your body has an effect on your thoughts and feelings, and every emotional or intellectual event has effects on your body.

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