Shankar Vedantam

At what point did doctors come up with a diagnosis, John?

Well, for someone who was so proud of his own mind and how his mind worked, I'm wondering if there was an element of shame that you felt as you were experiencing this.

I'm wondering how you viewed your future at this time, John.

Did the path that seemed so bright some months earlier, did it seem that it had closed off for you?

How long did your depression last, John, and how did it finally come to an end?

When John Rottenberg first fell into a severe depression, he saw it through a particular lens.

Like many of us, he had absorbed the notion that depression was a flaw in character or in brain chemistry.

It took years for him to see his experience in a different light.

That's when we come back.

You're listening to Hidden Brain.

I'm Shankar Vedantam.

This is Hidden Brain.

I'm Shankar Vedantam.

For several decades now, we've been told that depression is a malfunction, a glitch in our brain chemistry, a flaw in our cognitive wiring.

But at Cornell University, psychologist John Rottenberg says this account may be wrong, or at least incomplete.

John, how would you describe the prevailing model that we have of depression?

You say that the defect model often blames depression on faulty brain chemistry and claims that antidepressants are the solution, but that the evidence doesn't fully support this idea.

How so, John?

So this would be in contrast to something like, you know, if a physician worries that you have high cholesterol, you can take a blood test and actually show what your cholesterol levels are.

And with the right medications, you can then show that your cholesterol levels are changing.