The Role of Will in Depression

William R. Colagrande, MS

Depression, despite its widespread prevalence, remains a very complex and poorly understood phenomenon. While its varied causes are beyond the scope of this essay, there is one element of it's composition that I would like to focus upon.

From a simply pragmatic perspective, it is helpful to view depression as an imbalance of the will. By will, I am referring to a desire to do, achieve or accomplish certain goals or objectives and taking the necessary steps to put them into action. In this case, we are considering will at two separate levels, one more simple and conscious, the other more complex and more unconscious. In short, problems arise because we have too much will on the one hand and too little on the other. Let's start with the more commonly understood problem of having too little.

When suffering from bouts of depression, it is fair to say that the afflicted individual often does not feel like doing certain things, like going out with friends, going to work or even just getting out of bed in the morning. It is often difficult to know when to allow ourselves to pay attention to these kinds of feelings and allow them to guide our choices and when to rise above them and make ourselves do something despite them. Being incapable of clearly discerning how to best and most honestly respond to feeling depressed is certainly at the crux of the problem.

Unfortunately we often find it easier to allow circumstance to dictate our choices. We know we can't skip work very often without being concerned about losing our jobs, so we usually make ourselves go there. Social functions are another story and we tend to see a greater tendency to avoid them, despite the inevitable consequences. Not only will our spouses and friends soon tire of frequent refusals, but our sense of self-esteem also suffers when we too often choose to opt out. This is a case of having too little will. Sometimes we do need to make ourselves do things, in spite of not feeling like it, just to preserve our friendships and respect our need to live balanced lives. It is at times like these that we need to appreciate the value of understanding and respecting our feelings while not always allowing them to dictate the choices we make. In short we have to employ our will in order to maintain our sense of balance and self-respect.

Now comes the more complex part. Let's start with an example. It is fair to say that everyone wants to be liked, well thought of, respected and even admired. Ideally this state of affairs is arrived at simply by being the person you are and being in contact with others who will mirror these qualities back to you. But many of us, due to various circumstances we encountered in childhood, grow up with deficiencies in this regard, leading to a hunger or craving for something that ought to come naturally. Because we suffered from a lack of this type of mirroring from those around us during a crucial developmental phase in our childhood, we are often too keen or even aggressive in this regard. We can crave the attention, affection and admiration from others much as a drug addict craves his fix and this craving is often accompanied by the same unfortunate consequences. Add to this already dangerous formula the notion that we are mostly or sometimes completely unconscious about this craving and you have a recipe for disaster. Of course, we tell ourselves, it is natural to want the affection and respect from those around us, but we usually fail to appreciate a subtle but critical difference. It is one thing to achieve this respect and affection spontaneously and it is another to actively pursue it, thereby allowing this quest to become a dominant, if poorly understood, motivating factor in our lives.

This, if you haven't already figured it out, is a case of having too much will. The insidious aspect of employing such a strategy is that even when we succeed the payoff is short-lived and we very soon find ourselves once again in the hunt for this elusive sense of satisfaction. And that's when we succeed. When we fail the consequences to our self-esteem and self-concept are dire. The sense of disappointment and despair engendered by the failure to obtain that which seems so crucial to us can be considered an operational definition of depression itself.

The task here then becomes one of recognizing this impulse within us to whatever extent it exists and to begin the practice of divorcing ourselves from it. Easier said than done. It is helpful to recognize and appreciate that by choosing to continue to attempt to extract praise and admiration from life (from being too willful) we are only creating for ourselves a hell on earth. Once we grasp this unintended though very powerful aspect of the strategy, it makes it much easier to relinquish it and cease doing ourselves so much self-inflicted harm. I doubt that we can ever give it up altogether; it's all too human a foible. But we can reasonably strive to achieve more of a relaxed Here I go again attitude toward the impulse and simply drop it whenever we catch ourselves pursuing this addictive and hollow goal. What is required is awareness of what we're doing and a compassionate attitude toward ourselves (and others for that matter) when we recognize this impulse is in play.

One advantage of recognizing the role of will when we are feeling depressed is that it almost always gives us an opportunity for short and/or long term relief. A large part of the problem of adequately dealing with feelings of depression is the variety of and poorly understood aspect of their origins. Anything that serves to help us understand the dynamics of what we are experiencing and offers a formula to combat them is clearly a boon. Positive attitude and action helps create a positive, upward cycle that serves to enhance our sense of confidence and self-esteem, just as the depression itself serves to lower them. Positive action, positive use of the will, is the key.

2008

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