The Depressive State Is Necessary for the Creation of Individuality
Here are a few more clarifications about the place of depression in our psychic life and spiritual development, and how to “use” it properly. They are especially valuable for people who have noticed that in their lives they often swing between extremes. At one moment they are very happy and confident in themselves, in their own strength and rightness; at another they are in the deep pit of doubt, feelings of inferiority, depressed mood, and dark thoughts. At one moment they are white and good; at another they are the very embodiment of evil and the devil. At one moment they are “the lamb,” at another “the axe” that strikes it.
Although people who go to such extremes of extremes are not that many, this swinging is in fact widespread and, in the language of one of the many theories in psychotherapy created by the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein, it is called the “schizo-paranoid position.” The other “position” in this theory is the so-called “depressive position,” and in order to avoid confusion it is important to clarify that these terms denote not pathological states, but basic human attitudes.
This theory of Melanie Klein has always felt somewhat foreign to me, not only because I am not a psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist, but also because of its heavy language. When I read it again as presented by Liz Greene, I was able to see it in a new way, because she connects it with spirituality.
“It is one of the best models in psychology that helps us to understand the dynamics of depression as an evolutionary stage. It is strange that an analytical model as clinical as Klein’s shows such close kinship with an apparently esoteric model such as alchemy. But clearly both are describing the same process.”
— Liz Greene, Dynamics of the Unconscious, Vol. 2
The process in question is the process through which, for the first time, we are able to separate from the mother and develop our individuality. Then we move from swinging between extremes and alternating identification with only one side of the coin, to the middle – where we know that both are within us. Maturation comes when we stop identifying with the alternating states, which is why this position is called paranoid-schizoid: we are inwardly split by the battle between these opposites within us and identify with only one side, regardless of whether it is good or bad, while projecting the other side onto the outer world.
Here is what Liz Greene writes:
“*To truly perceive the mother as a person who is sometimes good and loving and at other times bad and rejecting requires a certain degree of ego development. The same applies to the person himself and to the sense of oneself as an individual capable of both love and hate. The movement from the paranoid-schizoid position to the depressive position means a gradual separation from the mother, so that the child emerges as a separate being with the beginnings of individuality, and the mother stands out as a separate object, distinct from the child.
Many people get stuck somewhere between these two stages of development. They never fully enter the depressive position because – in the literal sense of the word – it is depressing to realize that life is not so simple, not just good and bad breasts (referring to the mother’s breasts at the stage of the child’s development when this position arises). Thus depression, seen through Klein’s eyes, is connected with the acceptance and internalization of one’s own evil, of one’s own potential for destructiveness…
Paranoia, therefore, is a pre-depressive state. When the destructive feelings that have been projected onto other people return inward, are understood, and are accepted, the result is depression. But a person can also become stuck at this stage. You are probably beginning to understand what the alchemical nigredo is in psychological terms. This is why the alchemists considered it so necessary in order to obtain gold.
The depressive state is necessary for the creation of individuality. The acknowledgment that one is capable of evil and destructiveness is not as simple as it sounds. The integration of such insights is hard work. It is possible for the individual to be so struck by the discovery that he freezes, exactly as if the head of the Gorgon had appeared and paralyzed him.*”
I realize that such a text, taken out of context, can be misunderstood. I am also not a supporter of oversimplified explanations. Nevertheless, I decided to share it with the readers of this site because I see its value for people who are seeking orientation on the path toward psychic well-being and spiritual development. Its message is, after all, simple: depression is an expression of the integration of the psychic shadow and an inevitable stage of our development. As painful as it is, it is in fact a more advanced stage than the swinging between extremes, because we finally manage to contain both within ourselves.
“This is why in analytical circles one is not infrequently relieved when a patient becomes properly depressed – that is, depressed in the sense that Klein gives to the word. This is an important sign of progress, of an ego that has become strong enough to have its own feelings. The patient has finally come to stand on his own ground instead of flitting about in the ether, avoiding bad feelings, or wallowing in the subterranean darkness and identifying with the evil of the world.”
— Liz Greene
In some way this reminds me strongly of what Osho says – that “the ego lives in extremes, and in the middle it dies.” Depression is the path toward the middle, and that is why there is so much dying in it. If we manage not to get stuck in it, we may be born into a new life.
And we get stuck in it only if we resist the acceptance of the inner Shadow. In a sense, one could say that we come out of depression when we manage to enter the depressive position. Because depression itself is also an extreme, unlike the depressive position, which lies in the middle. The latter is an expression of contact with the limitations of reality, of mourning that things are not as we would have liked them to be, of the loneliness of separation and differentiation from others – but also of the strength “to stand on one’s own ground,” to have healthy ego boundaries in which one can contain both extremes without falling apart. It is the humility of realizing that one is not as great and flawless as one would have wished, and that nothing human is foreign to us.
This means to be properly depressed.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
Note: The quotations are translated from Bulgarian and are not presented as verbatim citations.
