Gratitude Schmatitude

It's November.  Time to tell other people to be grateful, right?  Apparently some people think so.  A common theme I have found among my peers who have depression is being pressured into writing daily gratitude lists and/or a journal by family and/or friends. The reasoning is this, if the person expresses gratitude, then their depression will go away. While these family and/or friends have good intentions, their logic is quite flawed.

In doing a quick search of academic articles, I found no studies to corroborate the suggested negative correlation - or the idea that as gratitude increases, depression decreases - between the two.  Instead, I found many studies that suggest when a person thinks their families and/or friends adhere to common misconceptions regarding depression and how to "cure" it, that person's depression increased, they were less likely to take their medications, and some were more likely to develop suicide ideation (i.e. the desire to commit suicide) (Tam, Foo, and Lee, 2011; Sirey, et al., 2001; and Yang and Clum, 2010).

I did find plenty of articles that suggest gratitude can help mental health.  However, many of these are faulty for two reasons: (1) they use unscientific measures and claim spurious results and (2) they focus on mentally healthy populations which means their results cannot realistically apply to those with depression.

I'm a big believer in being grateful.  Really, I am.  There is so much poverty and war and disease and death and other tragic things that exist in the world that remind me of how truly lucky I am to live where I live.  I try to live a life in which I recognize my privilege of living in a wealthy country. But I don't believe that gratitude will ease my depression, neither do I believe that pressuring my friends and/or family members into writing contrived gratitude lists will help heal their depressive symptoms.  In fact, there was a period not too long ago that I did try and compose daily gratitude lists to ease the darkness and hopelessness I felt.  Rather than help, this activity led to more thoughts of suicide and even deeper sorrow than before I started.

Does this mean I won't participate in November's thank fest?  No, I will; on my own terms.  Besides, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  Depression won't take that away from me.

References

Tam, Foo, and Lee (2011). The Association Between Perceived Social Support, Socio-Economic Status and Mental Health in Young Malaysian Adults.  See PubMed.

Sirey, et al. (2001). Stigma as a Barrier to Recovery: Perceived Stigma and Patient-Rated Severity of Illness as Predictors of Antidepressant Drug Adherence. See Pyschiatry Online.

Yang and Clum (2010). Life Stress, Social Support, and Problem-Solving Skills Predictive of Depressive Symptoms, Hopelessness, and Suicide Ideation in an Asian Student Population: A Test of a Model.  See Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior.