Sometime
in the mid 1970’s I read a study done at the University of Wisconsin. As I remember it, they divided a number of depressed college students into three different treatment groups. One group they treated with medication, the second receives standard “psychotherapy”, while the third group was paced into an running program. Analysis of the results showed those treated with meds were first to respond followed by the runners; the talk therapy group was the slowest to respond. Interestingly, months after the study period the re-evaluated the students and found those treated with meds were first to relapse into depression, followed by those who had psychotherapy. Most of the runners continued to run and remained depression free.
At that time I had been counseling a depressed high school boy. Armed with this new knowledge I asked him to take advantage of the spring weather and join the track team. Reluctantly he followed my advice. He missed the next month’s scheduled counseling appointment. Two weeks later I was working late at the office when I received an “emergency” call from his mother. Ryan had run away!
The ache in my churning stomach prevented me from seeing the humor in this irony.
Mom explained Ryan usually came right home from school after track practice, but today he failed to return. It was dark and her calls to his friends’ homes failed to produce any leads. She was panicked and I felt her pain.
I was still on the phone with her when our over worked receptionist knocked on the door to tell me Ryan was here for his appointment of two weeks ago. Mother, unable to talk, turned in to a tear fountain. I let her talk him.
He explained, he remembered he had forgot his last appointment but felt so good and strong that he decided to run over to my office and tell me. Unfortunately, he did not realize how long a run it was (about 10 miles). I quickly finished up at the office and gave him a ride home. It was a very pleasant trip.
Here we are half a century later with gyms doing a land mark business, prescriptions for anti depressions drugs at an all time high, mental health workers on every street corner and still, so many people are depressed. I wish I knew why!
If you have ideas about the causes of depression let me know, because I plan to write more on it later and value your thoughts. There’s some new info about Adverse Childhood Events relating to depression in later years. We’ll discuss these ACEs then.
Note that our comments “mess up” has been fixed, thanks to Alan. Try it out, you’ll like it, and so will I!