"The contemporary man is happier than his ancestors, because he has more means to be glad ", underlines the psychiatrist Luis Rojas Marcos, author of the book Nuestra felicidad, in interview to the site Saluladia.    However, his prognostic for an immediate future is that "we’ll keep having anguished men and women ". The immediate future, in fact, has already knocked on our door, since his book came out, eight years ago. We just look around and see the wave of bad feelings that

sweep society away, challenging everybody.

Dr. Marcos says: "The human beings tend to think that we live the worst moments of our existence. History is the best antidote for this nostalgia ".

We live, sometimes, in search of a lost time, in the past, when we were happy, forgetting that, provided happiness is built and resultant of small moments, the best moment to live it is now. Neither yesterday nor tomorrow. It doesn’t mean we won’t come back to the happy places of our past; or that we gave up believing we can be happier in the future...

The idea that we should live the present moment, which would denote maturity and balance, is also taught by the Spirits, which have invited us to make the most of today, that we should consider as the last of our lives.

This is what Joanna de Ângelis says: “If you want to be happy, live, every moment, in an entire form, gathering quotes of happiness, hope, dreams, blessings, in a complete panel”. And goes on: “Happiness isn’t about things: it’s an inner state, an emotion”.

The psychiatrist goes on, later, commenting on the thieves of happiness: pain, fear, anger and depression. Depression, especially, is considered by him as "the most unhappy thief of happiness ever”, because it steals our hope, and can take us to auto destruction. 

Later he says that even though “the youth of today has grown wealthier, more direct, more possibilities to fulfill and more freedom, they are more pessimist and suffer from boredom”. The new generations are, this way, more vulnerable to depression, which is on the verge of becoming an epidemic all over the world, according to other specialists.

For the psychiatrist, many factors must be combined to understand “the spread of depression”:

·                   The growing glorification of individualism which foments competitiveness;

·                   The feeling of failure for the obsessive search of social status;

·                   Frustration for the unbalance between our aspirations and our opportunities;

·                   The personal responsibility for our successes and failures and

·                   The increasing number of divorces. 

In spite of these figures, he understands that “medical and pharmacological breakthroughs have allowed that endogenous depressions, originating from within, be timely diagnosed and precisely treated. In more than 90 per cent of cases there is a sensible recovery or total cure”. 

The patient should work without
self-pity or self-punishment 

As he finished his interview, he describes depression if one shows: “sadness, lack of will, apathy, indifference, violence...” And he gives, at last, his recipe to combat it, inside the pictures of medical and pharmacological resources, which constitute his referential as a psychiatrist. In his words: “We’ll combat depression with medical treatments, with the evolutional improvement of the species and our knowledge about brain. The prevention will be based on our knowledge about the human genome”.

It’s not up to us to show, as it’s common and inelegant, the limits and faults of thoughts from others, to exalt the resources we have available, whether they are the Spiritist resources of diagnosis and cure, or other ways of therapy, that fits our preferences best.

We must respect, therefore, the Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, Psychology and its derivatives, because these specialties have their own approaches and methods, worth of our respect.

Every professional will always work inside its set of beliefs, values and resources. And even if we can distinguish certain limits they use, we can never disqualify them.  

To resume, it has been theme for many works. Joanna de Ângelis, in her books with a psychological insight, has approached this subject precisely within Spiritist referential. 

As for depression, what is the Spiritist view on this syndrome, epidemics today?

The message entitled Nostalgia and Depression, by the aforementioned author will guide our study. She says that:

● No matter the origin of depressive disturbances; fundamental is the participation of the sick one in its process of cure.

The depressive is sick, because depression, as the experts in the medical area say, is a disease and requires proper treatment.

It’s not; we need to emphasize, vague sadness, a temporarily being upset, but an installed ailment.

The fact the treatment requires medicative action shouldn’t cause us any surprise, because of the physical implements, the brain chemistry is compromised, altered, requiring adequate treatment.

● The patient should work without self-pity or “self-punishment to find the objectives of his existence”

Self-pity or being the victim is a complex that affects us all. We tend, many times, to feel sorry for ourselves, as if we said: “poor me, I suffer a lot...”

As self-pity was not enough we still add to this dangerous state of soul self-punishment. In this case we would add: “I suffer and it’s no wonder, because I don’t deserve anything different; because what I did (or didn’t) is unforgivable. God will never forgive me...” 

Joanna de Ângelis says that the man is
the measure of his efforts 

● The personal effort is fundamental in the process of cure.         

The patient must act the forces of will, searching whenever necessary is, humbly, the reinforcement of other resources – the support, the aid, the caring of friends and relatives.

● The search of conscience of self or self-knowledge to promote the release of “depressive idea, of self-compassion”, providing “mental renovation and building action”.

It’s necessary to discover our hidden talents in such occasions; beside the limits we should realize our great potential of growth for life. This will certainly require us more efforts of thought, higher flights, so that we can feel, from now, we as an immortal Spirit, heir to God.

We can have notion of the abyss before our feet, which we should avoid, but it’s essential to contemplate the stars, so that we can see little by little the fruits that come from our fights looking to getting over ourselves. 

To all this they are used to calling as self-cure, which will demand much more than quick readings and soft music!

Joanna complements her thought, in this aspect, by saying that “the man is the measure of his efforts and inner fights for self-growth”...

The cure of this and other ailments, syndromes or disturbances, must not be conceived as a simple process of releasing the patient from something that constrained him, unease him, hurt and made him unhappy; it is needed to consider it as our commitment, individual, so that we can look to adjust the ways of life itself, in view of the necessity of our deeper transformation.

Then we can state that we are disease-free, even though many symptoms are manifested; we are sick in a long process of cure for so many ailments that we still retain in the depth of ourselves...

● Physical exercises for the revitalization of the body and detoxifying, consequently, of the plexus.

Many times we forget that we are living in a body and that the latter acts and react to our commands of thought and emotion. The old adage “sane mind in sane body” should not be forgotten.

● Therapeutic resources can be added, such as “bioenergetics therapy (Reich, as well as the Spiritist), logotherapy (Viktor Frankl), or according to the symptoms, the help of a specialized psychotherapist, as well as a help group, can be helpful”.

The indication of such resources throws to the ground the idea, sometimes in the Spiritist environment that: 1) everything is obsession (even depression and other psychological disturbances); 2) everything can be cured with passes and fluidized water, and the removal, in the meetings of disobsession, of the agent...  

The role of the patient is the touchstone
for the process of cure 

The Spiritist therapy, as a complement is essential and at times can correspond to the entire responsibility for the cure of the patient, affected by this or that ailment. However, it should not be exclusive, if the intervention of the health professionals is required.

The role of the patient is the touchstone for the process of cure. He proposes to study, to transform, and to activate the resources that Spiritism puts at our disposal. If there is any miracle, it’s the miracle of self-overcoming, self-transformation.

● The choice of the therapeutic resource suitable “must be done by the patient, if he is lucid enough to do so”, or then, by the family “in order to avoid comprehensible damages, which, occurring, generate more complexity and difficulty of recovering”.

The resistance by patients and families to some ways of treatment can generate the “complexity and difficulty” quoted by Joanna. In extreme cases, the patient is not cured or even commits suicide.

The resistance to treatments goes from the psychological therapy to the ingestion of medicine prescribed by doctors or psychiatrists, regardless of those who hold out to reap the benefits of auxiliary resources available in Spiritist Centers: the passes, the fluidized water, the orientation via fraternal dialogue.

● Other important resources for the recovering of mental and emotional health of the patients will depend: 1) on the creation of a healthy psychosphere around himself and 2) on the change of psychosocial factors at home and even at workplace.

As we can see, the process of cure must count on the participation: 1) the patient himself; 2) the family; 3) workmates and even the existing environments and psychosphere around him can affect positively or negatively.

Conclusion

We approached the question of happiness and depression, from lessons found in the book by Dr. Luiz Rojas Marcos.

The lessons by Joanna de Ângelis about depression brought us important enlightenment and now it’s up to us study such themes, complex ones, demanding other readings and studies.

And we remember, at last, in our struggles and searches, what was taught by the Spirit of Truth, as it is written in the Gospel according to Spiritism: “Spiritists! Love one another, that is the first precept; educate yourselves is the second.”
 

References:

FRANCO, Divaldo Pereira. Love Unbeatable Love (by the Spirit Joanna de Ângelis). 1st ed. Salvador: Livraria Espírita Alvorada, 2002.  

KARDEC, A. Gospel According to Spiritism. 112th ed. Brasília: FEB, 1996. 

ROJAS MARCOS, L. Nuestra Felicidad. 1st ed. Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 2000.