Depression in the Past
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Transcript of Depression in the Past
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Learn About Depression in the Past
positivetranceformations.com.au
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Oddly enough, a lot of what we can learn about depression in the past comes from
literature.
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For some reason, a tendency towards melancholy often seemed to be associated with the ability to write well – it was part of
the poetic temperament.
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Poet after poet wrote rather introspective works about what it felt like to be in the black depths of melancholy or depression.
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Perhaps we could take a leaf out of their books and turn to journaling as a form of
self-expression and therapy.
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The list of poets who seemed to suffer from depression in some form or other (at least if their poetic works are anything to go by)
reads like a list of the great authors of the English language:
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John Donne, John Milton, John Keats, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, Gerald Manley Hopkins and possibly even Samuel Coleridge
as well.
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However, you don’t have to be as good a poet as they were to benefit from getting your
feeling and thoughts out on paper.
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The first major scientific work on melancholy or depression was written in
1621 by the philosopher Richard Burton.
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his work’s full title was the rather unwieldy “The Anatomy of Melancholy: What it is, with all the Kinds, Causes, Symptoms, Prognostics & the Several
Cures of it,
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in Three Partitions, with their Several Sections, Numbers and Subsections,
Philosophically, Medicinally and Historically Opened and Cut up”. We’ll call it the Anatomy of Melancholy for short!
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If you can handle the old-fashioned English and a few bits and pieces of Latin (some of which are
translated), then you can read it for yourself at
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10800/10800-h/10800-h.htm.
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This work investigates what we would call depression, drawing on all branches of
science that were known at that time. It’s quite a big work – you have been warned!
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Some of the cures listed by Burton are quite interesting.
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In agreement with many modern thinkers, he claims that diet can be used to treat
melancholy and (in his terms) balance out the bodily humours.
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Some of the things that he suggests as suitable items of diet include chicken, mutton,
wheat bread, plain water, apples and oranges,
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which is all very well, but he has a huge long list of forbidden foods that include a lot that doctors today would consider to be very
healthy (cucumbers and cabbage, for example).
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He also suggested eating food in moderation and in season, which today’s naturopaths
would agree with heartily.
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Other cures include moderate exercise, baths, fresh air and an active love life.
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And the best sort of exercise, according to Burton, is exercise that works the mind as
well as the body and is fun to do.
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Music is also recommended to ease a troubled mind, whether you play it or listen to it. All
good advice!
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He also states that “Whosoever… shall hope to cure this malady in himself or any other,
must first rectify these passions and perturbations of the mind: the chiefest cure
consists in them.
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A quiet mind… is the only pleasure of the world,” indicating that a troubled mind is one of the biggest caused of depression (yes, they knew that back in the 1600s!),
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and suggests that people seek help by getting rid of obsessive and negative thoughts – which is precisely the sort of thing that
hypnosis and hypnotherapy try to do.