The ABC Of Depression
The medical opinion, until recently, was that depression was caused by biochemical imbalances. In fact, in depressions called “endogenous”, these imbalances occur that affect the levels of neurotransmitters. However, these depressions are rare. The most common is that depressions are caused by some important loss for the person.
In this sense, the cause is not biochemical, but neither is it due to the situation that has occurred. So what is the cause of this sadness that often accompanies depression?
The real cause of this depressive emotional state is the way of thinking, the way the person interpreted what happened. It is the thoughts generated by this emotional state that leave us feeling discouraged.
The ABC model
Albert Ellis, the father of rational therapy, created the ABC model for patients to realize that it is not the situation that causes emotional distress, but rather our thoughts and beliefs.
It is necessary to distinguish between healthy emotions and negative emotional states. Negative emotions like sadness, fear, discomfort are considered healthy because they help us to face what happened in our life. They help us to act logically and realistically.
However, negative emotional states such as depression, anxiety, guilt or anger block and paralyze us. We were unable to face the situation and entered a “vicious circle”, from which it is difficult to escape.
The ABC model defines the A (activating situation), the B (my thoughts), the C (how I feel and how I react to the situation). The B is the real cause of the C, not the A. We normally believe that the situation is responsible for how we are feeling, but that’s not true. We can easily prove this when we observe that people who live in the same situation react differently to each other.
A dyed black B
The ABC of depression can be summarized as follows: There is an activator (A), which may be a loss of something very important to us, and (B) our thoughts about this situation. We feel useless, the world becomes dark and sad, we cannot look to the future because we harbor enormous despair.
These thoughts flood our minds and we believe they are true. If I think it’s true. In reality it is not like that, but our mind tends to generalize everything, to label it globally, to dramatize, and this creates such intense suffering (C), that we call depression.
The truth is, this doesn’t solve the problem. With these thoughts and emotions we end up isolating ourselves, we stop doing what we like and we even forget about our daily routine. This is C, an illogical behavior that goes against our life goal of “being well”.
depression OC
At first, this behavior frees us from the effort of getting up and doing what we don’t want or like, but in the long run the problem becomes chronic and we feel depressed.
By doing so, we miss the opportunity to get to know ourselves better, to check if our thoughts about ourselves, the world and the future are true. So the key is to modify that negative B that makes you suffer and paralyzes you. Only you have the key to free yourself.
