Tom Cruise and Brooke Sheilds

Over the years I've come to feel badly for the Scientologists. Yeah, the whole zemu thing is very odd, but they have a right to believe whatever they want. I just wish they had steered clear of the psychiatric debate. Too many people think bad things about scientology and it can make things very uncomfortable for other activists.

On that note, we look at Tom Cruise's recent comments about Brooke Shields using Paxil to help her with post-partum depression. In his own words:

"These drugs are dangerous. I have actually helped people come off," Cruise maintains to Bush. "When you talk about postpartum, you can take people today, women, and what you do is you use vitamins. There is a hormonal thing that is going on, scientifically, you can prove that. But when you talk about emotional, chemical imbalances in people, there is no science behind that. You can use vitamins to help a woman through those things."

And many in the press groaned ... in their minds it has long been decided that depression is a chemical imbalance. I groan because I think most depression is emotional.

While looking around online I found this clip that I thought was particularly eloquent:

ALL emotional responses have a chemical consequence. When we laugh, for example, there is a greater amount of chemical endorphins (natural painkillers) released into the blood stream. Endorphins do not cause laughter however, they are a consequence of it.

Until recently, and partly because of drug-company marketing, the widespread belief was that depression was a biological illness. It’s even been called a ‘disease.’

Depression is 10 times more common in people born since 1945 compared to people born before 1945. So, ten times as people are becoming depressed now as compared to fifty years ago (and this research takes into account increased reporting and public awareness). Biology doesn't change this fast. Genes don’t alter this rapidly - so this is a clue that clinical depression and its increase are more to do with the way society and lifestyles are changing. Depression is not an inevitable consequence of adverse life circumstances either, as only a minority of people exposed to difficult situations go on to develop clinical depression.
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The way we respond to situations (with thoughts of hopelessness, helplessness, anxiety, anger, etc.) effects the emotions we feel which, in turn effect the chemicals which are released.

So according to this theory, the reason why Brooke Shields and other women suffer from post-partum depression and psychosis is because their stress levels are high, which effects their emotional state. I would venture to guess that hormones make them more emotional in general as well. I know I was very weepy with both joy and sorrow when my child was born. And all this emotion, change, and stress, and inability to deal with the stress, causes depression.

That makes a lot more sense to me than biological psychiatry's assertion that it's all purely physical. Oddly, I get the feeling that that's what Cruise is advocating as well - that it's all hormonal.

Still doubt me and my "for 90% of people depression is emotional" theory? Well, consider this: a few weeks before Brooke Shield’s child was born her father died of cancer after a long illness and she and her husband moved to a new apartment. Then they gave birth. That sounds like mountains of stress to me. I might spend a lot of time crying too under those difficult circumstances.

It's about people's hearts and souls. It's about who they are in the most profound sense. What it is not about is a pill, whether it's Paxil or a vitamin supplement. There are no magic solutions to bad feelings. <>