In psychology, there’s a helplessness and a hopelessness theory about depression on how the two might explain some of the mechanisms of depression. The helplessness theory was discovered when Seligman shocked a group of dogs that had no control over when the shock was ministered to them, and found that this group of dog eventually stopped trying to escape or to respond. This “learned helplessness” described how dogs and humans stop trying to escape after realizing that they had no control over their environment. Hopelessness theory explains that some people who are depressed have internal, global, and stable interpretations of negative events–they think negative events are their fault, that this failure means failure in everything, and that this situation will never change.
As I come into contact with individuals with mental illness, I realize how little I can do for them as a professional. In the world of psychiatry, your main job as a doctor is to do titration, to try to find a right dosage and/or combination of medication that will reduce the symptoms for the patient. In the world of clinical psychology, the clinical psychologist can help you adapt better to your environment or retrain your way of thinking. Yes, meds and therapy will help you adapt better, but they don’t cure you. They can’t take the illness away. I really think there is a spiritual component to mental illness. Not to say people are necessarily possessed by demons (though that could be possible and is biblical too), but hopelessness and lies that you’re unworthy and persecuted definitely sound like things Satan use to deceive us. I realize that only in God, can we find hope. God is the only supplier of hope. This is the eternal hope that won’t disappoint us (Romans 5:5), that will not be influenced by things on this earth, that allow us to rejoice in the Lord and our Savior even though the fig tree does not bud (Habakkuk 3:18).
knowing his grace 