First of all, it should be noted that the belief system discussed below refers to the mainstream, reasonable and legal, belief or other cultural systems in society. There is another phenomenon. According to a study by a certain American institution, there are also many people who

This article will discuss whether the treatment of depression has anything to do with the belief system.

First of all, it should be explained that the belief system discussed below refers to the mainstream, reasonable and legal Zongjiao, belief or other cultural systems in society.

1. Belief and treatment of depression , four common phenomena

First talk about several objective phenomena.

The first phenomenon , among people with faith and groups without faith, the incidence of depression is not significantly related. There are many people with faith who have depression; there are also many people with depression who have .

There is another phenomenon in . According to a study by a certain American institution, there are also many people who lose their faith after depression or no longer participate in faith activities. This is a special phenomenon.

In this study, people who go to church to participate in activities every week are considered to have faith. Some of these people no longer go to church to participate in activities after they suffer from depression.

The third phenomenon is, is faith effective or ineffective in treating depression? Both cases are common. Some people think it works, while others think that faith seems to be of little use to treat depression.

is like a drug for the treatment of depression, and about 85% of people are effective. Similar to this scientific and empirical view, there are no exact research results related to belief and depression treatment.

The fourth phenomenon , people with faith, including those who believe in the Lord or those who study Buddhism, are very willing to persuade some patients with depression to enter their beliefs.

Why is this? From the perspective of these believers, they will tell patients with depression that if you believe in the Lord, you will be saved, or if you study Buddhism, you will be able to cure your illness. This is their concept.

In addition, there may be some common parts of faith. Many belief systems promote compassion and altruism, and have the components of "love". At the same time, as a belief, there will be a place to rely on (a place to rely on), and the concepts such as fear and anxiety will be reduced in the heart. These views may also be the reason why people with faith are willing to believe that their beliefs can cure some psychological diseases.

This is between faith and the treatment of depression, four common phenomena.

There is another type. Some people believe that in addition to medicine and science, there will be a kind of divine power or the power of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, which can use supernatural and irrational power to treat diseases. We will discuss this later. Is this true?

Personally, I personally have the experience of getting sick from depression, and have also done a period of systematic study of psychological counseling, and have some understanding of psychology; at the same time, I also have some limited understanding of the mainstream belief systems, and have touched those who have faith and have no faith to seek help. There is some background knowledge and intuitive understanding of this topic.

2. The view of whether faith has an effect on depression recovery

First of all, it is clear my personal view. Regarding whether faith can play a role in treating depression, I will explain it in three aspects:

1. is proficient and deeply practices faith, that is, fully understand the teachings of a certain belief and practice them in behavior, which will be of great help to the treatment of psychological diseases. In theory, depression can be treated and may be completely effective.

However, from my personal observation, these people may not even be able to achieve such an effect, and may not even be able to achieve one to five percent. Moreover, to achieve this effect, it may even be countless times more difficult than taking medicine, or doing psychotherapy, or doing a lot of exercise every day.

Although this is the case, if the belief system can be used to treat psychological diseases successfully, he may actually be able to treat more things other than the disease. This will be analyzed later.

If you can understand some of the core ideas of faith and fulfill the requirements at the ritual or behavioral level, it will have some help in the psychological sense.

If it is a so-called belief in the form of superficial, that is, what is commonly referred to as superficial belief, or verbal belief, then it will not play any role and will not help in treating depression.

This is my point of view, divided into three levels. I will analyze it in detail below.

Theoretically, it can be 100% able to help with depression recovery, certainly, completely!

The so-called in-depth practice of faith refers to the group of people who truly have faith in faith.

In fact, faith is not just "faith". This is the primary understanding. In addition to faith, belief, and faith, there are many various requirements at the behavior level, and there are many profound philosophical principles that transcend science and psychology. It cannot be explained by the simple word "faith".

For example, there are many requirements for believers, or precepts, and many things to do in terms of behavior. For those who believe in God, such as being baptized, one-tenth of their income is required to contribute, and attend local church activities every week, etc. These are not something that everyone can do, and these are the minimum requirements.

For practitioners who study Buddhism, for example, if you want to develop the Bodhicitta, what is Bodhicitta? It means you have to make your own wishes, and you want others to be happy from the bottom of your heart and let others be free from pain.

This kind of heart (mind) is great, but it is actually very difficult to truly make this kind of heart and wish from the bottom of one's heart. If you can really do it, you must remove your greed and some of your own persistence and selfishness. If you want to reach this level, you must do a lot of various training before this.

For example, to truly treat the Bodhisattva or Buddha as your refuge in your heart, at any time, if you are unhappy or encounter difficulties, the first thing you think of is Buddha and Bodhisattva. It is also difficult to achieve this. It requires a lot of training before you reach this, and this kind of training also requires a lot of effort. These training may be much more than psychological training during psychological treatment.

For example, there are some practice methods that require 100,000 weeks, which means kowtowing you ten thousand times. This is a basic threshold for getting started. These are all the behavioral requirements for real learning a certain belief, also called practice. If you can do this, you may achieve the first goal, which is that you can use faith to treat diseases.

But I also said before that using faith to treat diseases may be more difficult than taking medicine, more difficult than psychotherapy, and many times more difficult.

Doing these (acts of practical beliefs) is not just a psychological belief, but requires experience, physical and mental experience, physiological experience, psychological experience, and physical and mental experience.

Faith is not a blind, simple "faith". If you ask me to believe it, I will believe it. Try to believe it to see if it can cure depression. This kind of faith and this mentality will not help treat depression at all, and it cannot be done at all.

This is the third case. There is no great significance for treatment. What

said earlier, can you really treat depression by proficiency and in-depth practice of beliefs? Many friends may have doubts about this concept. Can it be treated 100%? The concept of

is not an exaggeration, because any belief system is a kind of knowledge about the "heart", which studies the human heart, especially some ancient cultural system that has been passed down for more than two thousand years. It can be said to be a kind of knowledge about the human heart and a kind of science.

Modern psychology has only a short history of two or three hundred years, and the two beliefs mentioned above have a history of more than two thousand years. The AD dates began with the birth of Jesus , and its research scope is beyond psychology and covers psychology.

Some friends may still have some doubts about this.Let me give you a few more examples.

Many top psychologists in the world, such as Jung , have absorbed many Buddhist concepts in his psychology, such as the self-nature, individual unconsciousness, and prototypes in Jung's psychological works. These concepts all come from Buddhism.

includes Jung himself when he was suffering from mental illness and mental disorders, he also created a mandala painting therapy. This mandala painting therapy also comes from the mandala of mandala, the mandala, that is, the place where he lives, and the visualization and painting of these places.

Another famous psychologist, Masama Morita, founded Morita Therapy is a very good psychological method for treating depression and anxiety, especially obsessive-compulsive disorder . The content of

Shentian Therapy also absorbs the ideas of Mahayana Zen.

In addition, there is also the mindfulness therapy founded by Dr. Kabakin of the contemporary United States. It absorbs the ideas of the Eightfold Path of the Theravada. Mindfulness is a concept in the Eightfold Path. It eliminates some non-psychological components, integrates part of the meditation into the scope of modern psychology, and creates mindfulness-related therapy.

This therapy has now been widely accepted by the medical and psychological circles around the world, including in China, and its effect is also very obvious in the treatment of depression. The psychological therapy founded by these psychologists only absorbed a small part of the teachings of Theravada The Theravada , and it will have such a great effect.

What's more, like mindfulness, for those who understand Buddhism, the part they eliminate actually has a greater psychological therapeutic effect. This is also the reason why I often introduce my helpers to practice authentic meditation.

Mindfulness therapy is very helpful in treating depression. The source of mindfulness and the meditation of Theravada Buddhism will of course be helpful. Psychology and Buddhism actually have many similarities.

The above examples can be strongly prove that the original content and practice methods of some beliefs are helpful in treating psychological diseases.

The second situation mentioned earlier is that if you can understand some of the core ideas of beliefs and then achieve behavioral requirements, it will have a therapeutic effect in the psychological sense.

For example, some believers have to participate in fixed activities every week, sing hymns, and do other charity activities. These behavioral matters are very helpful to patients with depression.

For patients with depression, doing these is also a treatment, a behavioral treatment and a psychological treatment. For example, singing is an art therapy, and reading the Bible is a reading therapy, which is very helpful for depression.

This is what I call the behavioral level requirement, especially when participating in activities every week, and the friend who participates in the activities is generally very friendly, friendly and very helpful, which is very helpful for patients with depression in interpersonal communication.

Therefore, we should not just understand the so-called belief, but just "believe" in our hearts. It has many specific practical things. For example, copying the Heart Sutra, such as repentance, worship, etc., are all very good, and are specific behaviors that have therapeutic effects on depression.

includes meditation and meditation. The mindfulness therapy and Vipassana meditation mentioned earlier have therapeutic effects. If you only have some understanding of a certain cultural idea and then achieve behavioral requirements, it will be helpful to depression. Whether it can be treated completely and thoroughly is another question, but it will definitely be helpful.

It is superficial in form, but it is just for faith. It is just for faith. It is just for faith when it hears that it may be useful, or for faith to cure the disease. If the disease is cured, I will definitely believe it well; if it is not cured, then forget it, and I have not suffered any loss anyway.

Such beliefs will not play any role in treatment.

These mentalities are not desirable. You should respect yourself, respect science, and respect faith. If faith can be speculative and faith can be negotiated, then this kind of cognition itself is very unhealthy!

does it have supernatural abilities? The power of God? The power of Buddha? Is it possible to cure depression with these irrational powers?

(Some people may even ask: "If there is no such thing, what do I believe in it for?")

Many depressed patients and their families are tortured by depression and are unable to think of a way, and they are even almost collapsed. They always hope that a miracle will happen. When they wake up the next day, all the depression symptoms are gone!

Some supernatural events say this, and even perform this way. In reality, there are very few such phenomena, but these depression patients are constantly working hard to treat, and it also takes several days to improve significantly.

As for the real supernatural power , at the belief level, as long as you simply read the classics about faith, no more than twenty or thirty pages, this question may have an answer, but what will happen to you must return to the first situation mentioned above, which depends on whether you can master, in-depth and practical this belief.

For most people, science and medicine are what we believe in, so there is no need to answer the question of supernatural forces, which seems to be a ridiculous question.

4. Can faith help me get out of depression?

My personal suggestion: to achieve the first situation, is it feasible to truly and completely treat depression through faith? This depends on the specific situation.

For example, you have faith or understanding some cultural system, and at the same time have good guides to help you further understand. Time also allows, and your confidence or other opportunities are ripe. At this time, I suggest that you resolutely choose this method to understand the classics in depth, carry out various beneficial behavioral treatments and behavioral activities in depth, and strive to achieve this method to completely and thoroughly treat depression.

If there are no above conditions, it is just to cure the disease, and you don’t know some beliefs at all, and you don’t have any special liking. It is not recommended to use this method to treat depression at this time.

In the words of Buddha, it is better to go with the flow. If you have a disease, you have to go to the hospital to diagnose and treat normally. This may be the fastest way.

5. Other ideas and methods

In addition, for another question in the title, what other ideas and methods are there?

In fact, what I want to share with you is that simply using faith to treat depression is not necessarily advisable, but there is a way I can suggest to you, for example, you can understand the real psychological treatment methods related to faith.

For example, the mindfulness therapy, Morita therapy mentioned above, including some psychological knowledge of personality, can be used to treat depression. At the same time, many of these treatment methods and psychological methods come from the Buddha's belief system or other cultural systems. At this time, through this kind of cause and effect, we learn the part of the faith. If you develop a strong interest, or if you benefit from it, you will continue to go deeper and achieve the first situation, which is to use the classics related to faith and truly and thoroughly treat depression. This is an idea I want to introduce to you.

Summary: The causes of depression are very complex. I personally often mention it and recommend using a variety of methods to treat them in all aspects, including various self-treatment, as well as some of the psychological methods related to faith mentioned above.