Anxiety & Depression

A collection of The One You Feed episodes that discuss handling anxiety and depression.

055: Therese Borchard

December 16, 2014 Leave a Comment

This week we talk to Therese Borchard about handling depression.

Therese Borchard is the author of Beyond Blue and The Pocket Therapist. She blogs for Everyday Health and is an Associate Editor and a regular contributor to Psych Central. She writes about her own struggles with depression.

In This Interview Therese and I Discuss…

The One You Feed parable.
Battling treatment resistant depression.
Turning struggle into service.
Her long battles with depression.
Treating depression holistically.
Combining traditional medicine with alternative medicine.
How positive thinking is of no use during extreme depression.
How there are no easy answers to depression.
Not having important conversations when we are hungry, angry, lonely and tired.
How it is possible to be depressed and grateful at the same time.
How diet is important but is not enough to solve depression.
How there is rarely a simple fix for depression.
How tiring faking that we are happy can be.
The importance of connecting with others who share the same challenges.
Why there are not more depression support groups?
The difference between mental health and 12 step culture.
Learning to accept our limitations.

Therese Borchard Links

Therese Borchard Blog

Therese Borchard on Pysch Central

Therese Borchard on Twitter

Therese Borchard on Facebook

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Kino MacGregor

Strand of Oaks

Mike Scott of the Waterboys

Todd Henry- author of Die Empty

Randy Scott Hyde

044: Jonathan Rottenberg

September 23, 2014 Leave a Comment

Jonathan Rottenberg- The One You Feed-

Podcast: Download

This week we talk to Jonathan Rottenberg

Jonathan Rottenberg is a leading researcher in the area of emotion and psychopathology, where he has focused on major depression. He is author of the book, The Depths: The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression Epidemic. The book is a new look at depression. Depression is discussed as an evolutionary adaptation that has gone wrong in our current culture. Depression is not thought of as a deficiency, or a lack of something. Instead he looks at depression through the lens of mood.

He edited Emotion and Psychopathology: Bridging Affective and Clinical Science, published by the American Psychological Association. Since receiving his PhD degree from Stanford University, he has been at the University of South Florida, where he is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the Mood and Emotion Laboratory. His work has been generously funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health and he has authored over 35 scientific publications, including many in the top journals in psychology and psychiatry. His work has received national and international media coverage, reported in outlets such as Science News, Scientific American, and the The New York Times.

In This Interview Jonathan and I Discuss…

The One You Feed parable.
Depression as an evolutionary adaptation.
Mood theory versus the defect theory of depression.
That in our society incidence of depression is growing.
The evidence for an evolutionary view of depression.
How the purpose of depression is to help us disengage from activities that are not fruitful.
How the defect theory of depression has no way to account for the growth of depression.
How key human tendencies such as language and goal setting can exacerbate depression.
The human tendency to make meaning out of everything and the role this can play in depression.
The role of rumination in depression.
Persistence of low mood is a key indicator in long term depression.
His personal battle with depression.
The three things that seed low mood: Events, Temperaments and Routines.
The emotional set point theory.
How living in a culture so obsessed with happiness is partially responsible for the epidemic of depression.
Social media and the role it plays in depression.
The inability to tolerate a little bit of depression can create a crisis where someone comes to question the whole path of their life.
The goal of evolution is survival, not happinesss.
Using medicine for depression as a step on the path.
Having higher standards for depression sufferers.
Using depression as a bridge to a better life.
Three useful approaches to depression: meditation, cognitive therapy and acceptance.
How these approaches all turn down the volume on the meaning making machine.
Emotional context insensitivity.
Depressed people react less to negative stimulus than non-depressed people.
Anger can be a useful tool in getting out of depression.
Depression can be caused by over attachment to goals, not under attachment.

Jonathan Rottenberg Links

Jonathan Rottenberg Home Page

Buy The Depths on Amazon

Came Out of the Dark Campaign

Jonathan Rotttenberg on Twitter

Jonathan Rottenberg on Facebook

Some of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:

Kino MacGregor

Strand of Oaks

Mike Scott of the Waterboys

Todd Henry- author of Die Empty

Randy Scott Hyde

025: Andrew Solomon

May 11, 2014 4 Comments

Podcast: Download

This week on The One You Feed we have Andrew Solomon.

Andrew Solomon is a writer and lecturer on politics, culture and psychology.

Solomon’s newest book, Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, published on November 13, 2012, won the National Book Critics Circle award for nonfiction among many other awards. The New York Times hailed the book, writing, “It’s a book everyone should read… there’s no one who wouldn’t be a more imaginative and understanding parent — or human being — for having done so… a wise and beautiful book.” People described it as “a brave, beautiful book that will expand your humanity.”

Solomon’s previous book, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression (Scribner, 2001), won the 2001 National Book Award for Nonfiction, was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize, and was included in The Times of London‘s list of one hundred best books of the decade. A New York Times bestseller in both hardcover and paperback editions, The Noonday Demon has also been a bestseller in seven foreign countries, and has been published in twenty-four languages. The New York Times described it as “All-encompassing, brave, deeply humane… a book of remarkable depth, breadth and vitality… open-minded, critically informed and poetic all at the same time… fearless, and full of compassion.”

In addition he recently conducted an exclusive interview with Peter Lanza, father of Adam Lanza, perpetrator of the Sandy Hook School shooting. It was published in The New Yorker and received an enermous amount of media coverage.

In This Interview Andrew and I Discuss…

The One You Feed parable.
Using work to make the world a better place.
The urgent business of living a moral life.
How to decide what we should change and what we should accept.
How hope can become the cornerstone of misery.
The challenges and joys of parenting disabled children.
The perfectionism of privilege.
The importance of the choice to celebrate what is versus wishing it to be different.
How we can grow through difficult circumstances.
The poison of comparison.
The idea of the “psychological supermodel”.
Layering feelings of failure onto depression and how damaging that is.
Learning to celebrate our difficulties and differences.
A beautiful and hopeful reading on depression.
How critical humor is in dealing with depression
New approaches to treating depression.
His ongoing challenges with depression and anxiety.
The shame of mental illness.
If you banish the dragons, you banish the heroes.
A life that is only luxury and pleasure tends to feel rather hollow and empty.
How sparing our children from all adversity is a bad idea.
The choices we face.
How encounters with darkness give us the energy to feed our good wolf.