I just read Biab's post "Solo life ups gene dementia risk", and her last sentence reminded me of "Self-help 'makes you feel worse' ", which I read on the BBC News a couple of days ago. This article is in the health section, and reports on research published in the academic journal Psychological Science. The researchers' discovered that a common believe that many people hold appears to be wrong. Many people believe that having a positive mental attitude and saying positive things to yourself helps people to be more positive and healthy, and to achieve more, but the facts show that this believe is false. In fact, for people with low self-esteem, the usual advice about being positive makes them more depressed and makes other problems worse. Actually, I'd seen the same research reported earlier in one of the science magazines I read, but we're blogging the BBC this week, so I'm glad it was there on Friday.
This article interested me not just for the results, which I think are important, but because it shows how important it is to test our beliefs about the way the world works. I have been hearing for many years the same idea: that we should be positive, that a positive mental attitude can achieve anything, and so on. I always thought this was wrong in at least one way. It just isn't true that everyone can do everything. It is impossible that I could be a great tennis player, and telling myself I could be would simply be lying to myself. And when I was at school and university, it was obvious that not all people were equally intelligent, and no amount of hard work or positive mental attitude could change that.
But the new results are more serious, they show that telling people who are depressed to cheer up and be positive, that they can solve all their problems is not only a lie, but that it can make their psychological problems much worse. This fits with other research I've read about which suggests that there are good evolutionary reasons why human beings, and probably other animals, have depression: it appears to help us to be more honest about the world around us, which is not always wonderful, and having an accurate and honest understanding of the world we live in is very useful to living successfully in the world.
So, the next time some is depressed or feeling low, perhaps honesty would be more useful than a false positive message that they cannot believe.
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References
Self-help 'makes you feel worse'. (2009, July 3). BBC News. Retrieved July 5, 2009 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8132857.stm
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