Jonathan Rottenberg

To give an example, I remember 9-11 and watching the planes hit the towers and I felt immediate terror and I felt immediate sadness and I felt immediate rage.

But it was about the future.

It really was.

Those feelings were about the future because there were the questions about who had done this and what would happen next.

And were we safe where we were right now?

whoever did this had to pay.

I think that people thought that they were reacting against what had happened, but it was really the implications for the future that made those feelings so strong.

So I agree that our feelings are there to help us do what we need to do in the moment, and that's a future-oriented system.

Well, I think that there's many things about depression in our contemporary life that are not serving us well.

My point only is that the original adaptation is useful, not that every instance of depressed mood is useful.

And in fact, there can be mismatches between the environment in which the adaptation emerged and our current environment.

Another thing that I really want to bring up that is unique to humans in human depression is the power of language and what that does to depressive episodes.

Because I think in an evolutionary perspective, it's important to keep in mind that this adaptation is seen across species.

And so we can talk about mouse depression or dog depression.

But my dog, I had a dog, Cyrus, and I think that there probably were times in his life when his environment was unpropitious and maybe he was depressed.

But Cyrus did not get down on himself.

He did not say that he was failing as a dog.

He didn't say that he should never have been born, right?

I mean, it's funny, but I mean this in all seriousness, that these are some of the things because of our unique ability to use language and to have a self-view and a self-story that human depression can be much, much more serious.

deep and terrifying.