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Jordan Peterson’s Advice for Overcoming Depression: Transform Your Mental Health · Motivation Mindset Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: The first thing I would say is that if you're
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: dealing with someone who's depressed, and they're really depressed, you
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: should try giving them antidepressants, because if they.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Die, you can't help them.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, So if you're suffering, you are obligated in a
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: sense to hold on to whatever rope someone throws you.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: And one of the things I do with my clients
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  Speaker 1: all the time, especially if they're really in trouble, is
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: to tell them, look, I don't know exactly what's going
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: to happen, help you, but don't arbitrarily throw out any
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: possibilities because you might not have that luxury. Antidepressants help
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of people, and there are technical reasons why
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: that's the case.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: So that's a simple answer.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: It's not relevant to what I already described, except that
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: if you're offered a gift by your society and it works,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: try it. I don't care what your presuppositions are. Apart
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: from that, Lots of time, lots of the time you
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: see people who are suffering with depression.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: For example.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: There's a multitude reason, but I'll take one common reason.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: You can think about it as associated with the story
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: of Peter Pan. Peter Pan is someone who won't grow
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: up right now. The problem with Peter Pan is he
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: gets to be king, but it's king of neverland. Neverland
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: doesn't exist, so being king of nothing isn't that helpful. Well.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: One of the things that you often see with people
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: who suffer from depression, and I'm not making a blanket
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: statement about the cause of depression because there's lots of them,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: is that people who don't have enough order in their
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: life tend to get overwhelmed. So, for example, if someone
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: comes into me and to see me and they say
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: they're depressed, I always ask them a very standard set
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: of questions, do you have a job. If you don't
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: have a job, you're really in trouble in our society.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: First of all, you biological rhythms tend to go off
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: the rails right away because there's no reason to go
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: to bed at any particular time, and there's no reason
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: to get up. And for many people, if they don't
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: get up at the same time, they follow up the
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: functioning of their circadian rhythms, and that's enough to make
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  Speaker 1: them depressed right off the bat, especially if they start
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: napping during the afternoon.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: They also don't have a purpose.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: People aren't good without a purpose, and isn't This isn't hypothesizing.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: We absolutely understand the circuitry that underlies positive emotion.
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  Speaker 2: We know how it works. Almost all the positive emotion
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: that any of.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: You are likely to experience in your life will not
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: be a consequence of attaining things. It will be a
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  Speaker 1: consequence of seeing that things are working as you proceed
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: towards a goal you value. That's completely different, and you
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: need to know this because people are often stunned. For example,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: they finish their PhD thesis and their presupposition is that
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: they're going to be elated for a month, and often
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: instead they're actually depressed and they think, what the hell,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I've been working on this for seven years and I
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: handed it in, and what do I do now? And
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: that's what depresses them, right, it's the what do I
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: do now? Well, they're fine if they enjoyed it pursuing
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: the thing as long as it was working out. They
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: get a lot of enthusiasm and excitement out of that,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: because that's how our nervous systems work. Most of your
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: positive emotion is goal pursued emotion. If you take drugs
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: like cocaine or amphetamine, the reason they're enjoyable is because
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: they turn on the systems that help you pursue goals.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: That's why people like them. So, if you don't have
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: a job, you got no structure. That's not good.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Plus you tend not to have a point, so you're
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: overwhelmed by chaotic lack of structure and you don't have
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: any positive emotion.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Well do you have any friends? So sometimes you see
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: people who are depressed.
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  Speaker 1: They have no job, they have no friends, they have
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  Speaker 1: no intimate relationship, they have an additional health problem, and
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: they have a drug and alcohol problem. My experience has
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: been if you have three of those problems, it's almost
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  Speaker 1: impossible to help you. You're so deeply mired and chaos
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  Speaker 1: that you can't get out because you make progress on
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: one front and one of your other problems pulls you down.
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  Speaker 1: So one of the things I tell people who are
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  Speaker 1: depressed is like, don't sacrifice your stability. Get a job,
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  Speaker 1: even if it's not the job you exactly want. Get
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: a damn job. You need a job, Find some friends,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: get out in the dating circuit, see if you can
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  Speaker 1: establish an intimate relationship. Put together some of the foundation
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: items that are like pillars that your life rests on.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: That's the practical thing to do. So that's one example
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  Speaker 1: with regards to depression. Well, the thing is you don't
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: just launch it on them. You know, you got to
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  Speaker 1: negotiate with the person and you also got to teach
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  Speaker 1: them to negotiate with themselves. And this is something that's
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  Speaker 1: very useful to know. You know, you can tyrannize yourself
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: into doing things, but I wouldn't recommend it. What I
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  Speaker 1: would recommend it instead is that you ask yourself what
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  Speaker 1: you're willing to do. It's a really effective technique. It's
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  Speaker 1: like a meditative technique. So for example, you can get
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  Speaker 1: up in the morning and you can think, well, you know,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: I'd like to have a good day to day, So
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  Speaker 1: I'd like to go to bed tonight without feeling guilty
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  Speaker 1: because I, you know, didn't do some things I said
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  Speaker 1: I was going to do, and I, you know, I'd
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  Speaker 1: like to have kind of an interesting day, so you
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: got to fulfill my responsibilities and I want to you know,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: enjoy the day. Then you can ask yourself, well, okay,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: what would I have to do in order for that
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  Speaker 1: to happen that I would do? And the probability if
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: you practice this for three or four days. Is your
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  Speaker 1: brain will just tell you. You'll say, well, you know,
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  Speaker 1: there's that piece of homework that you haven't done for
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: like three weeks. You should knock that sucker off. It
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: will only take you ten minutes. And you've been avoiding
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: it and torturing yourself to death for you know, like
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: like seventy two hours straight. And if you do that,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: here's a little interesting thing you can do. And you know,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: maybe this is little obligations you should clean up. And
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  Speaker 1: so what you do in a situation like that is
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: you teach the person to negotiate with themselves. Say well,
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  Speaker 1: let's figure out what your aims are. You've got to
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: have some aims, whatever they are. And they might say, well,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I'm so depressed, I don't have any aims. And then
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  Speaker 1: I say, well, pick the least objectionable of the aims
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: and act it out for a while and see what happens.
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  Speaker 1: Because sometimes your emotions, your emotional systems are so followed
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: up that you have to pretend you have to act
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: the thing out before you can start to believe it.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, people always assume they have to believe and
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: then act, but that's sometimes that's true.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: And lots of times it isn't.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: So. The trick if you're doing therapeutic work with someoney
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  Speaker 1: and you're helping them establish the structure is to find
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  Speaker 1: out what they'll do now if they want to get better,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: which is not a given, because there are often payoffs
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: for not getting better. That's basically the payoffs of being
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: a martyr, or maybe the payoffs of what your entirely
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: pathological family members want you to do because they actually
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: want you to fail. Assuming you want to get better,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: there's usually something you can figure out that would constitute
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: a step towards some sort of concrete goal. And my presumption,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: it's a behavioral presumption fundamentally, is that small accruing gains
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: that repeat are unbelievably powerful. So you know, this is
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  Speaker 1: another thing to know about in your own life. It's
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  Speaker 1: something I learned in part from reading the writings of
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Alexander Solzanetz, who's a great Russian philosopher and novelist. You know,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: he said, you can look at your life and you
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: can see what isn't right about it. I mean, all
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  Speaker 1: you have to is look, and then you can start
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  Speaker 1: to fix that. And the way you fix it is
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: by noticing what you could in fact fix. You know,
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  Speaker 1: people are often trying to fix things they can't fix,
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  Speaker 1: which I would not recommend, because if you try to
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  Speaker 1: fix something you can't fix, you'll just ruin it. Like
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  Speaker 1: you can find all sorts of undergraduates. They are perfectly
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  Speaker 1: willing to restructure the you know, the international economic system.
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  Speaker 1: Who cannot keep their room clean, and there's actually a
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: gap there, which and it's surprising that people don't actually notice.
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  Speaker 1: So I would say, if you pay attention, you can
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  Speaker 1: see things that you could fix.
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  Speaker 2: They yell at you, they really do. We even know
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  Speaker 2: how that happens.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Let me let me give you an example, because rooms
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: are full of stories, and the stories have effects on you.
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  Speaker 1: So here's a classic experiment. So you take two groups undergraduates.
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  Speaker 1: You bring them into your lab, and you give one
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  Speaker 1: group a multiple choice test that has a bunch of
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  Speaker 1: words in it that are associated with being old, and
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  Speaker 1: you give the other group the same multiple choice test,
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  Speaker 1: except the words are associated.
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  Speaker 2: With being young.
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  Speaker 1: This is independent of the content of the test, it's
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  Speaker 1: just descriptions. And then you time the undergraduates as they
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  Speaker 1: walk back to the elevators. The ones who read the
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  Speaker 1: ones who completed the multiple choice test that had more
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  Speaker 1: words associated with aging walk slower back to the elevators.
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  Speaker 1: And they don't know that, and they don't know they're
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  Speaker 1: doing it, and that that study has been replicated in
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  Speaker 1: various forms, many, many times. You're unbelievably sensitive to the
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  Speaker 1: story that your environment's telling you because your environment is
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: not made out of objects. That's just wrong. Your environment
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  Speaker 1: is basically made out of something like tools and obstacles.
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  Speaker 1: You're a tool using creature. You're a tool perceiving creature
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  Speaker 1: the things you like. If I take you out of
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  Speaker 1: this room and I say, well, what was in the room,
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  Speaker 1: You're not going to say, you know, random patterns in
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  Speaker 1: the carpet, because they're real, just as good an object
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  Speaker 1: as anything else. You're gonna say chairs because you can
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  Speaker 1: sit on them, and you're gonna say handrails because you
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: can hold them. You're gonna say stairs because you can
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  Speaker 1: walk down them. That's what you see, and that's what
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  Speaker 1: you interact with. And if you pay attention to your environment,
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  Speaker 1: which is you, by the way, extended all of your
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  Speaker 1: experiences you, it will tell you all the time what
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  Speaker 1: you should do.
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  Speaker 2: All you have to is do it.
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  Speaker 1: But then you have to decide if you want to
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  Speaker 1: do it. One of the things I've noticed about people
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  Speaker 1: because I've wondered. Once I started studying these mythological stories,
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  Speaker 1: and I got this idea about the fact that life
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  Speaker 1: can be meaningful enough to justify its suffering. I thought, God,
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  Speaker 1: that's such a good idea because it's not optimistic exactly.
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  Speaker 1: You know, some people will tell you what you can
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: be happy. It's like those people are idiots. I'm telling
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: you they're idiots. There's gonna be things that come along
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: that flatten you so hard you won't believe it, and
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: you're not happy then. And so if life is to
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: be happy, well in those situations, what are you doing?
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  Speaker 2: Why even live? But that isn't life isn't to be happy.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: If you're happy, you're bloody fortunate and you should enjoy it.
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  Speaker 1: You should because it's the grace of God.
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  Speaker 2: So to speak.
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  Speaker 1: With regards to meaning, I thought, well, people know when
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: they're doing something meaningful. They can tell, So why the
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: hell don't they do meaningful things all the time.
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  Speaker 2: It seems obvious you could do it.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard, you know, because other people want
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: you to do other things and it's a struggle, but
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: everything's a struggle. And then I thought, well, oh I
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: get it. I see why it took me about ten
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: years to figure this out. People have a choice Choice
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  Speaker 1: number one. Nothing you do means anything. Well, that's kind
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: of a drag, right, meaninglessness of life and all that
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: existential angst. You know, that's kind of a pain. But
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the opside of nothing that you do be mean.
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  Speaker 2: Is meaningful is you don't have to do anything.
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  Speaker 1: You've got no responsibility. Now you have to suffer because
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: things are meaningless. But that's a small price to pay
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: for being able to be completely useless.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: The alternative. The alternative is everything you do matters. Really.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: If you make a mistake, it's a real mistake. If
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: you betray someone, you tilt the world a little more
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: sharply towards evil rather than good. It matters what you do. Well,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: if you buy that, then you can have a meaningful life.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: But there's no mucking around. It means responsibility. It means
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: that the decisions you make are important. It means that
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: when you do.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Something wrong, it's wrong. Well, do you want that