Happy Monday, and welcome to your mental Health mini.
This week's guest is Doctor Ayla Rusio.
She's one of my pen professors. I worked in her lab for three
semesters. We're talking about depression.
The basic principle of stress generation was introduced by
Connie Hammer, and what she discovered in her research is
that many individuals who are depressed seem to be engaging in
behaviors that almost got in their own way that were making
things more difficult for them. So these were events that rather
than sort of completely random acts like let's say, you know,
there's a hurricane, for example, that's something that I
have no control over. I did nothing for this hurricane
to happen. I'm unfortunately sort of stuck
in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That would be an independent stress.
Something's independent from me, but to find that many
individuals depression were experiencing what she called
dependent stress. So dependent stress, an example
would be like frequent arguments with a boyfriend or girlfriend.
This is something that I contribute to in some way or
potentially could contribute to. I might have a very quarrelsome
boyfriend or girlfriend, but I also may be a person who is sort
of repeatedly doing things that's causing arguments to
happen or contributing in some way to the stress.
At first, at least, this was a controversial idea because we
don't want to blame the victim. We don't want to say like, you
know, people who are depressed are doing like bad things for
themselves. On the other hand, I think it's
really important to recognize when we are doing things that
are making things harder for us so that we can take steps to try
to improve the situation. So the basic idea behind stress
generation is that to some extent, all of us contribute or
can contribute to the stress we experience.
And the opposite side or flip side of that is that we all have
the opportunity to reduce our stress levels by taking a hard
look at what are we potentially doing that may be increasing
stress for us. So I'll give you maybe a minor
example. If I'm a person who's
chronically late, I'm going to be generating some stress for
myself, right? I'm going to, let's say, pay a
bill late. And as a result, I'm going to
have a fine and I'm going to have to pay.
Or let's say I'm going to arrive late to a meeting and as a
result, I'm going to be taken less seriously by the people I'm
supposed to be meeting with or I'll miss some important
information. So maybe for students, like
maybe because I'm oversleeping all the time, I'm missing class
or late for class and then I miss information I need to know
in order to do well in exams. If I recognize that I am
contributing to the stress that I'm experiencing by not managing
my time well, then by improving my time management skills, I can
actually reduce stress in my life.
That's a non interpersonal example, but an important thing
to note is that Connie Hammond observed that most of the
dependent stressors that she observed, especially in the
women in her sample, were inter personal in nature.
So the women were engaging in behaviors that were increasing
the likelihood of others in their life, sort of arguing with
them, leaving them, you know, where relationships were more
unstable or were ending or just were more stressful.
So thinking very hard about what are the ways in which I may be
contributing to difficult relationships.
And that includes selecting people to have relationships
with who may not treat us the way we deserve to be treated.
What could be done about it? So cognitively, what we often
see is people tending to respond in ways that tighten the stress
by by doing things like blaming the stressor on themselves and
unstable things that can't be changed.
As opposed to looking for outside reasons why the stressor
might have happened or recognizing the stressors come
and go, that they can be temporary rather than a stable
feature of me. So if I believe that when I
encounter stressors, it's because something is inherently
bad about me, it's unavoidable, and it's always going to be
around, I'm going to be much more likely to stay depressed.
And if I recognize that stressors can be things that are
temporary, that are outside of me and that can be controlled
emotionally. We often see high levels of
sadness and distress, but also low levels of positive emotion.
What seems to happen is that people are feeling sort of very
sad, very hopeless, but in addition they can feel just a
really difficult time feeling pleasure and joy and connection
to other people that really contributes to the difficulties
of this disorder. And then interpersonally,
oftentimes people withdraw from others.
They isolate themselves rather than reaching out and connecting
with other people, and that can make it very difficult for the
depression to stop. So an important first step is to
recognize that when stressors occur, all of us are going to
react. What we have some control over
is how are we going to respond? And so if we know that we're a
person who, when we experience a stressor, can react really
strongly, then thinking about, hey, what can I do now to deal
productively with this? What about the situation is sort
of out of my control? And it's like, I need to let go
of that. And what part of this can I do
something about? Let me actually make a plan for
how I'm going to address this, taking kind of concrete steps
and having a plan in place to address the things that can be
addressed cognitively, emotionally, interpersonally.
Rather than kind of withdrawing and isolating myself and
thinking about all the ways in which things are going wrong,
Can I instead approach, I'm going to reach out to people who
I trust and who I love, who I know will help me get through
the situation, encourage me to try something different?
Can I sort of think about activities that I can engage in
that are going to lift my positive emotion and will help
me curtail that negative emotional experience?