Everything that is human has a biological component to it. To say that your breathing, your dreaming or your belching is biological in nature adds absolutely nothing to the discussion.
If I were to say to you, "You know, your breathing is biological," you'd reply, "Well, sure." But if I were to say to you, "You know, your depression is biological," you might well reply, "Wow, thanks! That's good to know!"
As if I'd told you anything!
Typically people find it illuminating and even gratifying to hear that their "depression," "attention deficit disorder" or "generalized anxiety" is "biological in nature," even though everything human is biological in nature.
In the phrase "breathing is biological," the word "biological" carries no added connotation of "disordered" or "malfunctioning." In the phrase "depression is biological" it does. Because the first word in the expression "depression is biological" already carries the stigma of disease or disorder in it, whatever word you use at the end of the sentence sounds like an explanation. However, it isn't.
Consider two different phrases, "Sadness is biological" and "Depression is biological." You see how differently the mind reacts to these phrases. In the first instance, we know that what we mean is "sadness is human." In the second instance, we fall into the trap of acting as if we had just received an explanation of the exact source of this thing being called "depression." We didn't.
If you think that this analysis is only of interest to a linguist, let me remind you that the pharmaceutical treatment of "depression" is predicated on you falling for this bit of linguistic trickery. When a putative mental health expert says that your "depression" is "biological in nature" he has said precisely nothing, despite the fact that the phrase sounds like something is being said.
Robert Klitzman in his book In a House of Dreams and Glass about his psychiatric internship describes the world that psychiatrists inhabit, where two entirely different and contradictory explanations, one so-to-speak biological and one so-to-speak psychological, are routinely provided to explain the same phenomenon.
A woman visits the young intern Klitzman for treatment of her "depression." After the initial consultation, Klitzman meets with each of his two supervisors, describes his new patient, and asks for their advice. Provided with a few-sentence description of the woman, the first supervisor, biologically inclined, asserts that the patient's problem is biological. The second supervisor, psychologically inclined, asserts that the patient's problem is psychological. Klitzman shakes his head and goes off to pursue both courses of "treatment," hoping that he is not Alice and that this is not Wonderland.
Klitzman explained: "This case taught me a lot. My supervisors' initial expectations and plans had to be dropped ... Each supervisor had presented his approach to me as if it were clearly right, supported by theories and explanations, and guaranteed to succeed ... The two different approaches, psychodynamic and biological, each sought to achieve the same outcome. I didn't understand how."
If there were an actual disease or disorder present, you would need to know what was causing it. With any real disease, you would not only take a look at the symptoms but you would perform tests to see if the symptoms were being caused by a virus, by an organ malfunction, and so on. But if there is "only" a human phenomenon present like chronic sadness, then you can "prescribe" anything you like that affects change in human beings, including chemicals and talk. The transaction makes complete sense just so long as no actual "mental disorder" exists. This is what is going on here.
If you mean to say that "depression" is caused by faulty neural transmissions, say so. If you mean to say that "depression" is caused by too much or too little of some hormone, say so. If you mean to say that "depression" is caused by a particular brain malfunction, name it. If, however, you do not know what you mean and actually have no clue, please do not say, "depression is biological." That adds nothing useful to the discussion and is awfully manipulative and tricky.
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Eric Maisel, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist, bestselling author of 40 books, and widely regarded as America's foremost creativity coach. His latest book is Rethinking Depression: How to Shed Mental Health Labels and Create Personal Meaning (New World Library, February, 2012) and is available here. Dr. Maisel is the founder of noimetic psychology, the new psychology of meaning. Please visit Dr. Maisel at http://www.ericmaisel.com or contact him at ericmaisel@hotmail.com. You can learn more about noimetic psychology at http://www.entheosacademy.com/courses/7
