I have just been reading a very interesting article over at The Guardian, written by Paul Keedwell, honorary consultant psychiatrist at the mood disorders clinic at the Maudsley hospital, London, and a lecturer in the neuroscience of emotion. Thank you to Andy Smith at Practical EQ for bringing it to my attention.

Keedwell writes that labelling depression as an illness or a disease and focusing on it in a purely clinical way ignores the good that it can bring.

He says:

'The truth is that short-term pain can lead to longer-term gain. A recently published follow-up study of depression in Holland – the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study (Nemesis) – used a sample of 165 people with a major depressive episode, and provides some preliminary scientific evidence to suggest that depression is indeed helpful in the longer term. Researchers who were looking for evidence to suggest that depression leaves people chronically disabled were surprised to discover the opposite.'

Keedwell argues that depression can 'lead to great insights and achievements' and that the reason that depression has not been 'bred out' through evolutionary natural selection may be because it is actually beneficial.

Depression may be an opportunity to remove oneself temporarily from stressful circumstances, engage in personal reflection and gain new cognitive insights after which 'a new kind of truth could emerge that lies somewhere between the overly optimistic and the overly negative.'

Hmmm. I find this very interesting. And perhaps the same could be said for many other problems and illnesses that we encounter as humans. That is why I feel passionately that, in so many cases, if we just dole out medications to people who are depressed or having difficult emotions, we are removing an important opportunity for them to achieve new insights and this 'new kind of truth'.

In fact, I think our society has a bit of a hard time with people having emotions. How inconvenient of them! Pull yourself together! That kind of thing…

And yet we all go to the cinema to have and feel emotions! The more we feel them, the more highly we rate the film!

Anyone who has read my book and articles or attended one of my courses or seminars will know that I am very interested in the idea of 'letting-go' in order to allow 'a new truth to emerge' – a personal kind of truth that is more about what we really feel than what we think we should or ought to feel. This is, in fact, where my interest in hypnotherapy – and how I work today – originally emerged from.

This process of connecting with your emotions doesn't have to be painful either. And, of course, you don't have to be depressed to gain enormous benefit from connecting with a more 'felt' sense of yourself. It can be a huge source of inspiration and creativity.

In fact, I am running a workshop all about this on Sunday in York called 'Write Your Self!'. It will be lots of fun.

Have a wonderful weekend!