Treating depression the other way

Up until a few years ago, someone complaining continually of intense sadness or dejection would get responses like You think too much, What do you have to be sad about? Don’t feel this way or the classic It’s all in the mind. Eventually, for want of empathy, professional help or even a plausible explanation, they would eventually resort to feigning cheerfulness in social situations, all the while suffering internally.

Times are changing, though. Unwarranted advice has taken a backseat since depression has been acknowledged as a real illness. Help is out there, not just under the wings of conventional medicine, but also in the space of complementary and alternative medicine. People have finally started to pay attention to their mental health and that of their loved ones too.

Depression is a mental health condition where a person finds it hard to function normally. Generally marked by intense sadness and feelings of worthlessness, helplessness and hopelessness, depression manifests differently in different people. A few common symptoms are fatigue, loss of appetite or overeating, insomnia or excessive sleeping, irritability, restlessness, loss of interest, a feeling of emptiness, recurring thoughts about suicide, trouble remembering details, making decisions and concentrating.

Dr Kishor Adhikari, Professor of Psychology at Christ University, Bengaluru, describes depression using phenomenology–a method of inquiry based on the premise that reality consists of objects and events as they are perceived or understood in human consciousness and not of anything independent of human consciousness.

According to Adhikari, a depressed person has an extremely negative opinion of himself. For that person, the world is a dark and worthless place. “He sees himself as a burden and has a cluster of negative thoughts which keep resurfacing. Most importantly, a depressed person targets himself when angry,” explains Adhikari.

David Foster Wallace, the famous American novelist, struggled with depression for many years before hanging himself one fateful day at the age of 46. In his book Infinite Jest, he describes his struggle with depression. “There is no way Kate Gompert could ever even begin to make someone else understand what clinical depression feels like, not even another person who is herself clinically depressed, because a person in such a state is incapable of empathy with any other living thing. […] If a person in physical pain has a hard time attending to anything except that pain, a clinically depressed person cannot even perceive any other person or thing as independent of the universal pain that is digesting her cell by cell. Everything is part of the problem, and there is no solution.”

Wallace was not alone. Many famous people like Friedrich Nietzsche, Vincent Van Gogh, Charles Dickens, Winston Churchill, Agatha Christie, to name a few, also suffered from this illness.

Depression is difficult to deal with and while conventional medicine helps, sometimes anti-depressants and psychotherapy are just not enough. For those who have found no solace through them, other ways to heal do exist.

Alternative therapies

Alternative medicine has taken the world by storm. As the name suggests, it is an alternative to conventional or allopathic medicine. It consists of a wide range of therapies that can be used in place of standard treatments. Akin to alternative medicine is complementary medicine. The difference between the two is that complementary medicine does not replace but rather accompanies standard medical practices. Complementary and alternative, the two approaches of medicine are known as CAM.

Alternative practices like Reiki, pranic healing and acupuncture deal with body chakras–the seven energy centres of the body that correspond to different organs and control all emotional and mental behaviour.

Let’s take a look at some of the methods.

Reiki

The word Reiki is a combination of two Japanese words, Rei, the universe–and Ki, energy. Reiki is a healing technique where hands are used to transmit energy to the patient. Practitioners draw energy from the universe and pass it on. Energy can be sent from a Reiki practitioner to a patient anywhere on the planet. “Using Reiki, we activate and energise the chakras. In level one of Reiki, the hand is placed and energy flows while in level two, symbols are placed. For depression, level two works wonderfully,” says Ushaa Rani, an alternative healing therapist specialising in pranic healing, acupuncture and Reiki.

Pranic healing

Developed by Master Chok Sui from Japan, Pranic healing is a form of energy healing which uses life force or prana to improve health. Pranic healing is said to be extremely powerful and is based on the principle of accelerating the healing capacity of the body by increasing its life force.

Healers use colours on chakras to cleanse and energise them. For instance, cleansing of Muladhara chakra is done using red colour and is stabilised with blue colour. A pranic healer can feel the chakras and sense if they are over-activated or have holes in them. “A person with holes in the Muladhara chakra will display signs of depression that can be cured by pranic healing alone,” says Ushaa.