Why do depressed people lie in bed? A surprising theory

[Daniel E.]

Why do depressed people lie in bed? A surprising theory
by Jonathan Rottenberg, Ph.D.
June 3, 2011

...This alternative theory turns the standard explanation on its head. Depressed people don't end up lying in bed because they are undercommitted to goals. They end up lying in bed because they are overcommitted to goals that are failing badly. The idea that depressed people cannot disengage efforts from failure is a relatively new theory. It has not been much tested in research studies. However, the idea is well worth exploring. It fits well clinically with the kinds of situations that often precipitate serious depression -- the battered wife who cannot bring herself to leave her troubled marriage, the seriously injured athlete who cannot bring himself to retire, the laid off employee who cannot bring herself to abandon her chosen career despite a lack of positions in her line of work. Seeing these depressions in terms of unreachable goals may be useful clinically, and may help us better understand how ordinary low moods can escalate into incapacitating bouts of depression.

 

[Dragonfly]

.... maybe also because of the physiological effects of depression - slowed metabolism, slowed cognition (slowed metabolism in brain as well), slowed response times, slowed ability to make decisions, decreased energy levels etc. Its interesting that all of these descriptors are associated with the usual signs and symptoms of vegetative depression. I would guess that depression that manifests as anxiety has a lower prevalence of people who are unable to get out of bed. But just using a clinical guess .... not the literature for this hypothesis.

 

[Daniel E.]

Regarding the "overcommitted to goals" theory, I'm glad it rings true, and I certainly agree there are other factors as well.

The theory reminds me a lot of the book I have been enjoying, The Weariness of the Self:

In a culture of performance and individual action ["the cult of performance"], in which energy breakdowns can cost dearly, and in which we always have to be running at top speed and efficiency, inhibition is pure dysfunction, an inadequacy...That is why inadequacy is to the contemporary person what conflict was to the person of the first half of the twentieth century. From neurosis to depression -- that is Janet's posthumous revenge on Freud...

Depression reminds us in no uncertain terms that to be the owner of oneself does not mean that everything is possible...Because it stops us, depression holds our attention: it reminds us that we have not left the human realm...Depression portrays for all of us the style of the uncontrollable in the age of limitless possibilities...If as Freud thought, "a person becomes neurotic because he cannot tolerate the amount of frustration which society imposes on him," he becomes depressed because he must tolerate the illusion that everything is possible for him.

The Weariness of the Self: Diagnosing the History of Depression in the Contemporary Age