Questions?   Comments?    I'd love to hear from you!      > > >
Good Mood Bad Mood
  • Home
  • Purchase
  • Endorsements
  • Resources
  • Contact
  • Blog

Doing and Depression

3/6/2013

0 Comments

 
Doing & Depression

When I counsel with people who are struggling with a sad mood there are many things that can help lift them from their melancholy. One of them is serving others in the sense of Christian service. When I was a young physician I remember reading a newspaper column by Dr. George Crane. At the time Crane was a well known and widely read physician who wrote about lots of subjects. The one that has stuck with me was a column in which he told the story of how an older doctor told him how to help patients who were depressed.

The older doctor had a drill that he used whenever a patient came that was in a dark mood. He would write them a prescription that directed them to read a chapter of the gospel of Luke daily. (Luke of course is the patron saint of physicians since he was one.) Then they had to walk 2 miles a day. The last assignment was to find someone who needed help. They had to be worse off than the patient and could not be a relative. The patient could take nothing from them. They had to serve for 2 hours a week and would do this indefinitely.

The old doctor knew something that most people do not know today. Sadness seems to focus our attention on us. It also can result in sitting around a lot. So, the old doctor aimed to focus the sad struggler first on God and then the needs of others. And, then he made certain they would be physically busy.

Counseling people with sadness will require that most of them will need to be doing things. We know that Christians do them by God’s Grace. But, what we teach them from the scriptures may not help them much unless they act on what they come to know. Jesus said in Matthew 7:24 “the man who hears my words and acts on them may be compared to the wise man…” James said that we must be doers of the word and not hearers only. Counseling that has an active component of doing the things taught has a strong benefit for the sad struggler.

For more about dealing with sadness and depression see Good Mood Bad Mood.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Charles D Hodges Jr. MD
    I have been counseling people with mood problems and other family issues  for 25 years.  

    Archives

    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    January 2017
    October 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.