Shankar Vedantam

What do you mean by this?

Can you talk a moment, John, about how in the United States we've actually written the pursuit of happiness into one of our foundational documents?

What do you think that does to our mental states?

Our culture has embraced the idea that depression is a sign of something broken within us.

But John's research in affective signs suggests that depression might emerge from the same mood system that helps us to adapt and survive.

When we come back, writing a new story about depression, one that offers greater understanding and hope.

You're listening to Hidden Brain.

I'm Shankar Vedantam.

This is Hidden Brain.

I'm Shankar Vedanta.

Psychologist John Rottenberg studies depression and where it comes from.

Use the subject line depression.

That email address again is feedback at hiddenbrain.org.

John, you say that part of your effort to push back against the defect model of depression is to investigate what you call silver linings in depression and other psychological disorders.

What do you mean by silver linings?

In the course of your own depression, you learned some important things yourself.

One of them is that people were really there for you.

I'm wondering whether you felt greater empathy for others who've been through the same thing as a result of going through so much suffering yourself.

You told me when you were describing your depression that at times it felt like it was bigger than you, that it was stronger than you, that you were dealing with a force that in some ways was much more powerful than you were.

But at the same time, John, you are here today.