# Could Positive Thinking Make You More Depressed?



## David Baxter PhD

*Could Positive Thinking Make You More Depressed?*
by Therese Borchard
April 8, 2017

In his public TEDx talk, motivational celebrity Tony Robbins  claimed that he has never lost a client to suicide. 

However, a few days  before she jumped to her death, Sydney native Rebekah Lawrence  participated in an intense self-help seminar called _The Turning Point_  replete with techniques on how to positive think oneself to satisfaction  and happiness. 

For the last ten years, optimism has been touted as the one-way route  to ultimate health and happiness. Books like Napoleon Hill?s _Think and Grow Rich_ and Rhonda Byrne?s _The Secret_  promise prosperity and personal fulfillment with a few cognitive tweaks  in your thinking.  

However, recent studies disclose a few potholes in  America?s smiley philosophy. In fact, according to some experts,  positive thinking can reap more harm than good.

*It Doesn?t Make Sense*
 In her book, _Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America_,  bestselling author Barbara Ehrenreich explores the smothering impact of  positive thinking in American culture. *Forced optimism*, she argues, is  everywhere from medical institutions to churches, from politics to the  business world. Her book successfully debunks some central myths of  positive psychology, and begins with exposing the irrational logic  behind its concept. She writes, ?If the generic ?positive thought? is  correct and things are really getting better, if the arc of the universe  tends toward happiness and abundance, then why bother with the mental  effort of positive thinking? Obviously, because we do not believe that  things will get better on their own.? The whole vocabulary touted by  positive thinking gurus ??mind control,? ?thought control,?  ?self-hypnosis?? suggests that it requires ?deliberate self-deception,? a  herculean effort to block out ?negative? ? or should we way real? ?  thoughts.

*The Harder You Try, the Worse Off You Are*
 The anatomy of the brain can take only so much pressure to be  positive without giving the limbic system (the brain?s emotional center)  the bird as it wants to be left alone. Can you blame it? This is  especially true if you happen to be a chronic worrier  like I am. A study published in the _Journal of Neuroscience_ showed that  there was a breakdown in normal patterns of emotional processing that  prevented depressed and anxious people (everyone I know) from  suppressing negative emotions. In fact, the more they tried, the more  they activated the fear center of their brain, the amygdala, which fed  them more negative messages.

 For those with a diminished sense of self, repeating to yourself in  the mirror with a cheesy grin ? ?I am smart,? ?I am good,? ?Gosh darn  it, I rock!? ? might not be an appropriate exercise. Those types of  affirmations only work on the people who don?t need them ? the annoying  types who never doubt themselves, who would benefit from some  self-reflection. The folks who spend hours ruminating on how they can be  a better person, beat themselves up over mistakes they made ten years  ago, and interrogate themselves a few times a day as to why they aren?t  living up to their full potential? Better off spending your time reading 50 Shades of Grey, getting a massage, or grabbing a beer with a friend.

 Psychologist Joanne Wood of the University of Waterloo in Canada led a  study where a group of people were told to repeat to themselves a  positive mantra ??I am a lovable person?? on cue, which was repeated 16  times. At the end of the exercise, the folks with normal to high  self-esteem reported feeling slightly better while the ones with low self-esteem felt worse. Katie Goldsmith of University of California, Berkeley?s Greater Good Science Center blogs about the study,  explaining that people with low self-esteem might have been damaged by  the mantra because the affirmation could remind them that they aren?t  measuring up to standards set by themselves. Moreover, researchers found  that people with low self-esteem were better off when they were allowed  to have negative thoughts, versus focusing solely on positive ones.

*Focus on the Worst-Case Scenario*
 No study is needed to convince me that focusing on the worst-case  scenario will relieve anxiety. I often visualize myself jobless, trying  to gain employment at Kentucky Fried Chicken, moving my kids and husband  into a dark little apartment in a neighborhood where I?d tuck my kids  into bed to the sound of loud gunshots. I always breathe a sigh of  relief when I finish this exercise because I know that even if I ended  up there, we would all be okay. Sort of. The kids would fight over the  drumsticks. But I think we could resolve that with some tasty biscuits.  Oliver Burkeman, also with Berkeley?s Great Good Science Center, cites  research from the _Journal of Experimental Social Psychology_ in his blog post, _How to Harness the Positive Power of Negative Thinking_.  In one study a bunch of thirsty people were asked to visualize an icy  glass of water. What happened? Their energy levels dropped. Says  Burkeman: ?Visualizing your ideal future is a staple of self-help  bestsellers, but vividly picturing success can backfire badly.?


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## GDPR

OMG this is frustrating to read.So tired of reading so many conflicting things.


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## rohshall

And what is frustrating about this "feel good" stuff is, some intelligent psychotherapists/philosophers have argued against it long back. Nathaniel Brandon in his various books explained it to well why the religious mumbo-jumbo is detrimental to mental health, and how true self-esteem can be achieved by using our faculties to gauge reality, rather than deluding ourselves to feel good. And 50 years after that, we still have "spiritual" mumbo-jumbo (law of attraction, and stuff) fooling people into believing that negative emotions they feel are like garbage to be thrown away, rather than opportunity of knowing the truth about ourselves, and the world.


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## David Baxter PhD

It's not that trying to look for the positive in your life is a bad thing. It is all the crap, like the "law of attraction" that rohshall mentioned, catch words, invented to sell books and videos, all the buzzwords with zero basis in evidence or in the actual well-being of the people they scam... that is what does the harm.

There are no magic pills, no magic therapies.

Life is about hard decisions and hard work. That's how you triumph over and grow through tragedy and trauma, not merely wishing the bad away and "attracting" the good.

That sort of manufactured "positive thinking" isn't really positive thinking or positive psychology at all. Its not reality and it's not therapy. It's just nonsense invented to sell merchandise.

As with everything else these days, we need to work at becoming critical thinkers and evidence-based consumers.


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## GDPR

The first time I read 'The Secret' I was disappointed that my life didn't instantly,magically change for the better.So I read it again,and again,thinking I just wasn't putting my whole heart and mind into it.Of couse it didn't change a thing.

I guess I am one of those gullible people that has been willing to try just about anything,and buy just about anything.When someone is in enough pain and wants things to change and wants to improve theirself enough,it makes them easy prey for all that "nonsense invented to sell merchandise".

I'm sure it's been noticeable here at Psychlinks that I have tried many different things in order to help myself, with all the different threads I have started.I'm sure it's also been noticeable that the ones I haven't really found too helpful have just kind of fizzled out.Like the 'daily affirmations' thread,I posted in it for about a year and just finally gave up on it,repeating positive things to myself didn't really work.There are some that have remained helpful though,like 'what are you feeling today','daily gratitude','what did you do for you today','today I will let go of',and some others,and it has proven to me that I don't really need to spend any money at all in order to improve things and make changes.

It would be nice if there was something that magically changed things,but there's not,and you're right that life is about hard decisions and hard work.

I got frustrated when I read the article because I interpreted it as meaning that all positive thinking stuff is unhelpful and that any type of self help is a waste of time.And when I read this:



> No study is needed to convince me that focusing on the worst-case scenario will relieve anxiety



It really upset me.That has always been one of my downfalls,anxiety inducing and in no way helpful at all,something I have been working very hard,for years,to change.When I was a young child I would think of every worst case scenario that could happen,trying to prepare myself,would imagine it in vivid detail,so I wouldn't be caught off guard. If none of it happened and I was still alive the next morning I would feel very relieved.But then I started believing they didn't happen because I had prepared,that I was preventing things from happening by doing that,which turned it into an obsessive thing that I still catch myself doing at times.

I took this article as ridiculing someone like me that works so hard and tries so many different things.But,the way I see it,you never know until you try.


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## David Baxter PhD

There is no shame in trying different things. And there is certainly no shame in working hard to find solutions to difficult problems and issues.

I don't personally see the article as ridiculing anyone, and certainly my comments were not intended to ridicule anyone.
Rather, I was expressing my anger at the people who invent and promote schemes like these to exploit others, especially the vulnerable, by taking their money with false promises, essentially lying to them to make a buck.

Nothing in this thread should be interpreted as negating _real_ positive psychology or any of the components of cognitive behaviour that are aimed at helping you see your world and your circumstances in less negative ways, or reframing the very negative and self-critical thoughts that are a common part of depression and anxiety disorders and certain other mental health conditions. Those are based on actual evidence, not on false marketing testimonials.


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## GDPR

Sorry.I guess this thread made me start thinking about all the times I have been ridiculed by my family of origin for all the things I have tried in the past to help myself and  the things that were said(like "no matter how much help you get you're never going to get better,you will never be happy,your life will always suck,nothing will ever change")influenced how I interpreted the article.


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## David Baxter PhD

That's an unfortunate history to have to carry with you, LIT.

Be assured that they are not here and no one here will ridicule. We would not allow it. Nor would we ever allow the posting of anything which suggested or conveyed a message such as that. The post would be removed and the member posting it would very likely be banned for life.


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