when keeping it real goes wrong (remember that Dave Chapelle skit?)…

I don’t really know what the 3 articles were about.  Well, let me restate.  The Kendler et al. article is about the link between adversity, sex, and high neuroticism.  Coyne essentially spends 20 pages arguing why his initial graduate work is not the seminal work of depression, so we should get over it (by thinking interactionally). Finally, Cuellar et al. spend a tremendous amount of time exploring past literature to tease apart differences between unipolar and bipolar depression, to whit I am still unsure of whether they achieved their goal or not.  But after sitting on a toy toss-about plane where the couple sitting across from me continued their disgusting streak of PDA, I about had it with the Coyne article.  And then an airport employee was acting wildly inappropriate, though hilarious, throughout my ingestion of the Kendler article.  And poor Cuellar was subject to a ‘pause for the cause’ as I broke down the graduate school process to my WAIS volunteer (it was the least I could do for her, after subjecting her to a 3 hour test!).

Anywho, enough with my diatribe against all things airplain/airport/and graduate process related. 

The most interesting link I found between the articles was the exploration of trauma as it effects youth from the Coyne article.  Coyne explains that children tend not to develop severe depression from major traumatic events, and that if they do, it will appear as early on-set depression.  Rather, it is suggested that depression is a factor of various events that occur somewhat later in one’s life, coupled with the type of support that individual has.  This was also mirrored through the Cuellar et al. article, in that social support is extremely helpful in either uni or bipolar depressions.  In fact, without it, we see an increase in relapse, which ties in well with our readings from last week.

In essence, it’s all about support.  Kendler et al. brought about evidence that women are unfortunately lacking in this category.  Either unmarried, in a negative relationship, or suffering from a nasty divorce, women tend to be highly neurotic regarding the adverse events in their lives, and not only can relapse be improved by such data, depression in general can be minimized by it.  Female support groups, organizations, ministries, etc. can support the needs and welfare of women who have or may be prone to experiencing negative life events.  It’s not enough to be there a month after the divorce, but to have been there before and for years to come. 

Psychologists can definitely mediate such stressors by creating focus groups, or offering preventative, or ‘mind-grooming’ services, as I call it, to adult women.  It has been evidenced that women tend to need different emotions met than men, so, armed with this knowledge, we should certainly cater to these clients in a way that mediates preventable depression.

p.s. best benjabrunch/brunchamin EVER ladies (and ben, who is SURE to read this!! ;o) )