To all the people who are posting "if you are sad" answers, you're wrong, and woefully uninformed. Depression is not sadness. I'm going to repeat this, depression is not sadness. The article is describing a component of cognitive behavioral therapy. Your "opinions" are ignorant, please stop.
While you and I know that, literally up and down this thread are dozens of commenters who do not, and seem to think it is indeed just an “attitude”. Or that being sad is the same as being depressed.
>This is advice for sadness, not depression. This is the opening quote in the article: "Sadness is when you feel down because things aren’t going your way. Depression is when you feel down even when all is going well."
There's no mention of that in the DSM or the ICD.
People with miserable lives can still be depressed; people can have miserable lives without recognising that their lives are miserable. There is no such thing as an "objectively great" life; attempting to define the quality of your life in reference to fixed external criteria is arguably pathological in itself. Part of living a good life is developing an individual and personal sense of what is valuable and meaningful.
The current gold standard of treatment for depression, cognitive behavioural therapy, is in large part a coaching programme to encourage patients to do things to improve their lives. The cognitive aspect of CBT is secondary to the behavioural aspect - cognitive and metacognitive skills are taught in order to facilitate behavioural change.
I have no reason to disbelieve you when you say that you’re not depressed, but depression is not the same thing as sadness or the absence of happiness. You can be happy and depressed at the same time.
There is a different between feeling sad and depression. Equating the two is a problem. You're absolutely right that depression is paralyzing. You are absolutely wrong that feeling sad is the same as being depressed.
Other people in this thread have claimed, based on their own experience, that severe depression is nothing like sadness. So for me it's useful to see both sides (I'm not discounting either). It seems a bit one sided for you to criticize this post on this ground, and not the others.
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