Is Self-Improvement the New Kind of Depression?
Self-development – a new kind of depression? I decided to call this article this way, inspired by one video on YouTube. Let’s say that it was not even the video itself that inspired me, but its title and another phrase from Abraham Maslow’s book “The Far Reaches of the Human Psyche”. But first things first.
The title of the video sounded something like this – “Constant work on yourself is a new kind of depression”. It literally touched me to the quick. It would seem that people work on themselves in order to get out of depression (we are not talking about clinical depression) or a depressed state. People go to the gym or fitness, constantly study, go to trainings and master classes, sometimes to psychotherapy (in the best case). And all this in order to become better, happier, richer, more successful. You can add this list from yourself – it is quite standard, template and widely known to everyone. But if all this is so popular, then why can it become a new kind of depression?
Let’s think about it. What or who makes us improve? Let’s take an ideal case when our main critic is ourselves. I criticize myself constantly and force myself to improve again and again. I got one diploma – it’s not enough, I need another one. Do you know those who have three or four higher educations? I know. Or appearance – I need bigger lips, fuller breasts, longer hair, and so on ad infinitum. But the inner critic is never satisfied, he is insatiable and demands more. The result is burnout, loss of meaning, loss of vital energy and a depressive state.
Here, by the way, I remember a short video where in one of the interviews Jim Carrey talks about what depression is in his opinion. He says that depression consists of two words – deep and rest, and this state occurs when we have already brought ourselves to the brink. And when the body says – I need rest, I’m tired. When you can’t admit to yourself that you are already tired of endlessly improving and perfecting yourself.
Why do we strive to be better – a good question. In each individual case, the reason may be different. To understand what or who pushes you to constant improvements, achievements, self-development, you need psychotherapy. It often turns out that it is not your voice that speaks inside you, but the voice of your mother or your relative, who is trying to realize something of her own through you. Sometimes it is your own voice, which is simply trying to hide something else, important and valuable for you, behind improvements and self-development.
And this is where the truth comes in. Abraham Maslow in his book “The Far Reaches of the Human Psyche” says the following – “I imagine a self-actualized person not as an ordinary person to whom something has been added, but as an ordinary person from whom nothing has been taken away. I completely agree with Maslow. We come into this world complete, nothing needs to be added to us, we do not need to be improved – we already have everything for a full life.
But if we already have everything we need, why should we improve? As a psychotherapist, I know the answer. And the answer is very simple – we are not familiar with ourselves. We essentially know nothing about ourselves. We were not taught to recognize our true selves. We were told that we must meet the expectations of our parents, society. We were taught to adjust and adapt. Yes, such a strategy helps us survive. I would say – it helps us exist. But not live. When we improve ourselves, we dream of living a full life, don’t we? And a full life is possible only when we are complete. And we are complete when we are well acquainted with ourselves. Not with the image of ourselves, not with the fantasy about ourselves, but with the truth about ourselves.
So, the idea that self-improvement is a new kind of depression makes sense. Depression always comes where contact with oneself is lost. Depression always finds us in a state where we have forgotten what we are for and who we are. When we ignore our true needs, forget about our desires. We turn away from ourselves on one side to improve ourselves on the other. And what do we get in the end? An unbalanced system, forever searching for symmetry and harmony, but doomed to never find it.
The truth about yourself, you must admit, is a complicated thing. Difficult to accept. It is difficult to accept that I am weak in some things, subject to fears and doubts in others, that I do not know how to do something and do not know how to do something, that I am helpless somewhere or with someone. And the most terrible thing is to realize your powerlessness and the inability to control everything in this world. But only after getting to know yourself differently does that very “self-development” and self-improvement occur. You do not need to change or improve anything in yourself – it is enough to just get to know yourself for real. The best tool for this is psychotherapy, and I invite you to my consultation:
