We aren’t broken machines to be fixed with the flick of a switch
Anyone who has ever suffered from depression knows how bad it can get. When you become so utterly deadened inside that any normal thing — talking, walking, even thinking — feels impossible. You are literally de-pressed: pushed down, depleted, drained of all vitality.
Wouldn’t it be a miracle if there was a revolutionary treatment that could wipe out depression with the flick of a switch?
Now, it seems that there is.
The invention of a “pacemaker for the brain” made headlines around the world this week. Apparently, the implant works by monitoring regions of the brain for signs of depression. It then delivers a short burst of electricity when needed. This instantly resets the neural circuits and the depression disappears.
The first patient to have the device fitted is an American woman, known only as Sarah. Having suffered from severe depression for five years, she believed she had run out of options.
But when she received the brain stimulation, Sarah said: “I felt the most intense joyous sensation… my life took an immediate upward turn. It has kept my depression at bay, and allowed me to rebuild a life worth living.”
There are vast numbers of people in Northern Ireland living — or perhaps merely existing — with depression right now. Levels of depression are much higher here than in the rest of the UK. Research has shown that NI has one of the highest prescription rates for anti-depressants in the entire world.
It’s fair to say we have a serious problem – and it’s only getting worse. In 2020, the amount spent on anti-depressant drugs jumped by £7m. Too many of us are enduring twilit half-lives, mired in misery.
So, maybe a treatment like this, if supported by clinical trials, is the answer we so desperately need.
Or is it?
I am not so sure.
The medical establishment tends to treat the ill mind like a malfunctioning machine. From this point of view, depression is a biological problem caused by a lack of the neurotransmitter, serotonin, in the brain.
Our society, as a whole, views depression as a mysterious affliction that arises out of nowhere, descending inexplicably upon some poor unfortunate when they wake up one morning.
But neither of these viewpoints takes account of the whole person, each of us with our own individual histories, our own troubles and our own individual ways of coping.
We aren’t broken machines that can be fixed with a bit of tinkering, either through drugs or by zapping parts of the brain with electricity. We’re so much more than that.
The Canadian-Hungarian physician and author Gabor Mate takes a different approach to mental illness. For Mate, “depression is largely about the suppression of negative emotions or emotions we are afraid to feel… Not such a huge mystery, as far as I’m concerned.”
He says that “we can look on depression as just a medical disease to get rid of, or we can look at it as a teacher that guides us closer to ourselves”.
Perhaps because we can’t understand it, or quantify it, and also because it feels so awful, depression is regarded with particular dread. Certainly, you wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy.
But as enlightened thinkers like Gabor Mate have demonstrated, depression can be understood not just as a random, horrible affliction, but as an urgent message to slow down and take a long, deep look at what’s buried within.
That will probably be painful, of course. Most people run a mile from taking the lid off their emotions, for fear of not being able to get it back on again.
But it could be necessary to your future wellbeing.
As the psychiatrist RD Laing famously observed: “There is a great deal of pain in life and perhaps the only pain that can be avoided is the pain that comes from trying to avoid pain.”
This isn’t to deny the benefits of anti-depressants and other similar drugs. But, surely, it’s best to see them as a way of steadying the boat so that real healing — the kind that comes from feeling heard, helped and understood — can occur?
We seem to have forgotten that medicine is an art as much as a science. It’s not as simple as flicking a switch.
The risk is that, if we keep on thinking of depression purely as the result of a chemical imbalance, or misfiring circuitry in the brain, we won’t hear the vital, life-transforming messages it can bring.