Darle you really hit it with "If I had the energy to work at it, it might help with getting the energy!"
And yes I understand most people have know idea what the black dog is all about. But somehow I expect better from Doctors in the Mental Health system. Dump me.

Thanks Rachel.
This was one time it was right to post here. No doctor or normal friend would say what Rachel just said. They would most likely thing it a terrible thing to say. But then they don't under stand. It's not untill you are savaged by the black dog that you know.

Patrick

Studies are beginning to come out that say the 'power of positive thinking' for people who are depressed may do more harm then good.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...3300.ece
“I think that what happens is that when a low-self-esteem person repeats positive thoughts, all they do is contradict what is there already. So if they’re saying, ‘I’m a loveable person’, they might then think, ‘Well, I’m not always loveable’ or ‘I’m not loveable in this way’. Then these contradictory thoughts may overwhelm the positive thoughts.”

Professor Wood said that positive thinking might be effective when it was used as part of a broader programme of therapy. “But on its own it tends to have the reverse effect of what it is supposed to do.”

I find affirmations especially insidious. Have you ever received a compliment you didn't agree with? Often I get a compliment, then loath myself because of it for the rest of the evening. As much as I try to ignore it, the black dog take it as an excuse to tell me why I am NOT good, smart, pretty, capable...whatever.

Maybe you can show you doc this article?

Here's another version of the same study, with a different spin.
www.abc.net.au/news/stori...2607639.htm

"So we can teach people to visualise themselves moving from a helpless mode into a competent mode. When we're in a competent mode we can grow, we're creative, we can think of multiple solutions to problems, we can be nurturing and healing of ourselves and others, and be compassionate," she said.

"So what I work with is those two types of visualisations; of being in a helpless mode, and teaching a client to imagine themselves in a competent mode, acting 'as if'. It's a little bit like the AA axiom 'fake it til you make it'. So if you can teach a client to act as if they're in a competent mode, to imagine themselves in a competent mode, and how they would behave and think. So that's actually changing their behaviour."