Chyrytsia
Maria
Dragomanov
National Pedagogical University
The
Institute of Corrective Pedagogy and Psychology, student
Pet’ko Lyudmila,
Scientific supervisor,
Ph.D., Associate Professor,
Dragomanov
National Pedagogical University (Ukraine,
Kyiv)
DEPRESSION AND INDUSTRIALIZED
SOCIETIES
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Íàöèîíàëüíûé
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êîðåêöèîííîé ïåäàãîãèêè è ïñèõîëîãèè (Óêðàèíà,
ã.Êèåâ), ñòóäåíòêà
Ïåòüêî Ëþäìèëà, íàó÷íûé ðóêîâîäèòåëü
ê.ïåä.í., äîöåíò ÍÏÓ èìåíè
Ì.Ï.Äðàãîìàíîâà (Óêðàèíà, ã.Êèåâ)
Some cultures avoid the rabid self-centeredness that characterizes us.
The Hutterites, an isolated religious group which has existed for 400 years,
have crafted their society so differently than ours that our societal problems
of divorce, insanity and even depression are next to unknown in their
communities. Their long-standing religious customs establish a society that
emphasizes the communal over the individual, but through these practices the
Hutterites are able to avoid conflict and mental unrest to a great degree.
In modern society, where the individual comes to the fore, we get caught
in a festering cycle of guilt and self-reproach, internalizing our problems
instead of externalizing and working through them. When you look at the
loneliness, hopelessness and gloom that characterize depression, you can’t
separate the symptoms from their brain chemistry. And when you examine that
brain chemistry, it’s easy to see it not as some awful disorder but as a
specific kind of neurobiological symptom of a much larger, societal disease
[1].
Depression can lead to emotional and physical problems. Typically,
people with depression find it hard to go about their day-to-day activities,
and may also feel that life is not worth living. Feeling sad, or what we may
call "depressed", happens to all of us. The sensation usually passes
after a while. However, people with a depressive disorder – clinical depression
– find that their state interferes with daily life. For people with clinical
depression, their normal functioning is undermined to such an extent that both
they and those who care about them are affected by it [6].
G.Stranieri,
C.Carabetta point out that depression is a complex and articulated clinical
picture, characterized by a melancholy state of mind and a profound affliction.
The depressed subject loses interest in what surrounds him, has a pessimistic
vision of life and no joy of living, he lacks concentration and he is often
tormented by thoughts concerning death. He experiences the threat of loss and
feels “betrayed” by life. This overload of negative sensations feeds the
decrease in every interest in what surrounds him. So depression is an
individual answer, not necessarily or not exclusively pathological in itself,
which could be considered as the translation of a pathologic condition,
existent if not on an individual level, at least on a relational level, or a
social one, or an existential level in general.
The
authors write that depression has for several years been qualified as one of
the most widespread and expensive pathologise, according to WHO. It is
considered that by 2020 depression will be the first cause of mobility and
disability in more advanced societies, or rather in more affluent and
industrialized societies.
According
to reliable valuations, 10–15% of the global population had got or is going to
have one or more depressive episodes in the course of life. In the USA there
are 10 million persons suffering from depression, equal to 6% of the total
population. In Italy it is considered that the same illness has an incidence of
around 5 million, equal to 12% of the population, with a total cost of 1% of
the Gross Domestic Product [5, 91].
On the other hand
people in loving relationships don't typically feel depressed. Depression is
symptomatic of feeling isolated and cut off. In our drive to live the good
life, we typically isolate ourselves from relationships that might nourish us.
Nurturing and loving relations has become somewhat marginalized and lost value
in our very hurried lives. Our frenetic pace of life sees one day blur into
another, until life begins to lose its meaning. We haven't time to nurture our
loved ones or ourselves and we lose our vision of a well-spent life. In fact,
the problem is that we don't know how to live well.
Labels such as dysfunctional
are attached to people and families. People are not dysfunctional; social
systems are. People suffer and experience pain. We are human beings, not
machines that dysfunction. Such terminology expresses contempt for the human
spirit. A society that produces such staggering rates of depression is
dysfunctional. Our culture has created this epidemic [4].
To sum up, in
this 4-minute BigThink video, Dr. Andrew Weil, professor and founder of the
Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, explains how depression rates are much
higher in today’s society than what they were even during The Greater
Depression and World War II [3].
Bibliography
1. Culture and Depression: Studies in the Anthropology
and Cross-cultural. / [ed. by Arthur Kleinman, Byron Good]. – University of
California Press, 1985. – 535 p. [Web site]. – Access mode: http://books.google.com.ua/books?id=qSXap1UsCAC&pg=PA149&lpg=PA149&dq=Depression+is+a+product+of+modern+culture&source=bl&ots=gbLe1uRfZ1&sig=WSn1hKWPjUt0CKVXMlk6Aog4pLI&hl=ru&sa=X&ei=qhC7Uu2TKafJ4ATfwIGgCg&ved=0CFEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Depression%20is%20a%20product%20of%20modern%20culture&f=false
2. Depression is a product of modern
culture / Daily Cardinal – University of
Wisconsin Madison, December, 02.12 [Web site]. – Access mode: http://host.madison.com/daily-cardinal/opinion/depression-is-a-product-of-modern-culture/article_a6d7d97c-3cfb-11e2-b76b-0019bb2963f4.htmldinal/opinion/depression-is-a-product-of-modern-culture/article_a6d7d97c-3cfb-11e2-b76b-0019bb2963f4.html
4. Schwartz Mel. An Epidemic of Depression [Web site].
– Access mode: http://melschwartz.com/AnEpidemicofDepression.html
5. Stranieri Giuseppe, Carabetta
Carmelo. Depression and Suicidality in Modern Life / Psychiatria Danubina:
Conference paper, Zagreb, Croatia,
2012; Vol. 24, Suppl. 1, pp 91–94.
[Web site]. – Access mode: http://www.hdbp.org/psychiatria_danubina/pdf/dnb_vol24_sup1/dnb_vol24_sup1_91.pdf