ARE THERE WELL-DEFINED STAGES OF DEPRESSION?
Depression is a continuum of feelings. It goes all the way from mild sadness to severe dejection. It ranges from minor blues all the way through to the most severe form of mental illness. But that doesn’t mean we go from one level to another. It’s wrong for people to fear they’re going to end up with severe depression Page 9 just because they’ve started to feel a little down. There are big jumps between the various levels of depression. The difference between a minor reactive depression and a severe psychotic depression, for example, is enormous. There’s no connection between the two. There are identifiable stages in a reactive depression, however. It begins with an early stage where we are busy thinking about and analyzing whatever it is we’ve experienced as a loss. As we start this grieving process, we find ourselves moving much deeper into depression as the implications of the loss become more apparent. Finally, however, we “bottom out” and begin to put things into perspective as we
