"But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus;"
2 Corinthians 7:6

Last Update 01/02/08

Webster defines de' pressed as: dejected; downcast; sad; gloomy. Webster defines de' pres sion as: Psychiatry. a condition of general emotional dejection and withdrawal.

Let me remind you about the feeling thinking-patterns and body-emotions I experienced, leading up to my finding God and experiencing His presence in my life. I remember recounting all of my failures one-by-one. My professional ministry in the church was gone. My marriage was gone. My various business ventures were gone. All of my goals, dreams, and expectations were gone. My faith in a personal God was gone. My self-respect was gone. My hope in the future was gone. I blamed myself: it was all my fault. I felt profoundly empty. My mind was full of sad thoughts, angry thoughts, guilty thoughts, fearful thoughts, and anxious thoughts. I was conflicted and confused. The joy of family social activities became painful and exhausting experiences. I didn't want to do anything but sleep. I didn't want to live anymore.

I was experiencing a complicated and confusing mixture of feeling thinking-patterns and body-emotions. Since I had studied psychology and worked with many people in similar situations, I was able to put a label on my condition: depression. But, that did not help. Even with all my training in psychology and theology, I chose to believe all the negative thoughts that ran through my mind. After all, I had the history and experiences that proved them to be true. I needed a way out. I needed to stop hurting, but how - by living or by dying?

THE DEPRESSION FEELING THINKING-PATTERN: The Arizona Alliance for the Mentally Ill (AAMI) defines depression as: a "whole-body" illness, involving your body, mood, thoughts, and behavior. It affects the way you eat and sleep, the way you feel about yourself, and the way you think about things. They recommend antidepressant medications and psychotherapies. On rare occasions, they recommend electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). AAMI says the symptoms of depression are:

Depression as defined by The Natures of Mankind Psychology Model is a pattern of thinking. A feeling-depression thinking-pattern that is dependent on specific thoughts or perceptions; a feeling thinking-pattern that comes from a conscious self-awareness and that is based on mental choices; a feeling thinking-pattern that is characterized by feelings such as anxiety, anger, fear, sorrow, depression, and the like. A Feeling thinking-pattern is one type of a six-step mental process.

From now on, when you talk about feelings, you should be referring to your feeling thinking-patterns. You have an anxiety thinking-pattern, an anger thinking-pattern, a fear thinking-pattern, a sorrow thinking-pattern, a depression thinking-pattern, a faith thinking-pattern, a love thinking-pattern, a trust thinking-pattern, a hope thinking-pattern, a rejoice thinking-pattern, and so forth.

The depression thinking-pattern is actually a "soup" of all of those negative, feeling thinking-patterns. Remember, a feeling thinking-pattern is a six-step mental process that influences our thoughts, our belief systems, our body-emotions, and our observable behaviors.

Secular psychiatrists group many feeling thinking-patterns and behaviors together in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM) classification for Depression, and as a result, diagnosed depression accounts for 75% of all psychiatric hospitalizations.

Feeling thinking-patterns and Body Emotions are terms used in the New Testament Psychological Model The Natures of Mankind Psychology in the book Natures of Mankind Psychology.

In the New Testament, the Greek word (ta pa nos') can be translated de' pressed, humble, lowly; poor, of humble circumstances; downcast, downhearted; lacking confidence, meek and mild. It is a feeling thinking-pattern. It is a combination of thoughts that are downcast and disheartened. Depression is not something that occurs in the external world, it occurs in the personal world. It is the by-product of how the mind is used.

THE NEGATIVE THOUGHT PROCESS: The depression thinking-pattern (see figure 11.1) becomes a negative thought process when those thoughts in the depression thinking-pattern are not captured, rejected, and replaced with the positive rejoice thinking-pattern. When the depression thinking-pattern is allowed to continue in our minds, we will use it to respond to life's experiences and circumstances. We may respond to experiences in life by using the depression thinking-pattern we learned from the sin nature - "old self" or the "flesh." What we believe about life and how life works can be the basis for depression thinking-patterns. In these cases, the depression thinking-pattern is a response to many negative experiences in life that have led to negatively distorted beliefs about God, life, and ourselves. The depression thinking-pattern usually includes a negative self-image and thoughts such as: "I am damaged. I am defective. I am worthless. I do not deserve anything or anyone good. I can't be successful on my job. I can't be successful in relationships. My life is hopeless. I will always hurt. I will always feel bad. I have always failed and I will always fail. God is not involved in my life or He hates me." Do any of these statements sound familiar? It is vital for us to acknowledge that these kinds of thoughts are lies and deceptions. You can see the depression thinking-pattern in figure 11.1. This figure is on page 233 in the book Natures of Mankind Psychology.

NEGATIVE THOUGHT RESPONSES TO LIFE: The depression thinking-pattern is a negative response to failures, defeats, bad experiences, or to our inabilities to be happy and/or successful. We are using the depression thinking-pattern when our responses to life are based on a belief that we are defective, inadequate, diseased, or deprived.

We are using the depression thinking-pattern when we respond to our circumstances in a purely negative way.

We are using the depression thinking-pattern when we respond to our beliefs that we lack the ability to attain happiness and contentment.

We are using the depression thinking-pattern when we respond to our beliefs that we are always going to fail in life.

Finally, we are using the depression thinking-pattern when we respond to the failures and disappointments of life because we have believed the lies, myths, and deceptions offered to us by the world, the flesh, and the devil, instead of living according to God's truths.

In the book Getting Anger Under Control, Neil T. Anderson and Rich Miller talk about why the mind determines "depressive" body-emotions:

"It is not the events themselves that trigger our physiological responses. Nor is it our adrenal glands themselves that initiate the release of adrenaline. Rather, external events are picked up by our five senses and sent as a signal to our brains. The mind then interprets the data and choices are made - and that is what determines the signal that is sent from the brain and nervous system to the peripheral nervous system. The brain cannot function any other way than in the way it has been programmed by the mind. This is why we are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2)."

The truth is that neither people nor circumstances can make us have any particular feeling thinking-pattern or body-emotion. Therefore, we need to start questioning what we are doing. We need to start taking responsibility for our feeling thinking-patterns and body-emotions. We can "make sense" about how our bodies are responding, by asking, "Am I using a negative or positive feeling thinking-pattern?" Then we can say, "If I want my body to respond better, I have to change my feeling thinking-pattern."It is our feeling thinking-patterns that determine how our bodies respond. As long as we continue to use a negative feeling thinking-pattern, our bodies will respond negatively. When we use a positive feeling thinking-pattern, our bodies will respond positively.

The word translated rejoice comes from the Greek word (ki' ro) and it has been translated as rejoice, be glad. The New Testament says very little about depression, as it is defined by AAMI, but says volumes about rejoicing.

PRAYING PRAYERS OF REJOICING: Rejoicing is all about praising, thanking, and being grateful for who God is, what He has done for us, what he is doing for us today, and what He will do for us eternally. We will develop depression thinking-patterns if we believe the lies that come from the world, the flesh, and the devil. When we start using the depression thinking-pattern, we might believe that life is just a collection of losses and failures. We might believe that we are failures. We might believe that we are no good. The good news is that we can lift our depression by rejoicing in God and with our fellow believers. Use a prayer of praise to God so He can raise you up:

Dear God, I praise and thank You for loving and purchasing me with the blood of Your Son, Jesus. Thank You for considering me worthy of Your Son's sacrifice. Thank You for wanting me to spend eternity with You. Thank You for considering me important enough to spend everyday with me. Thank You for making me Your child. Thank You for giving me eternal life. Thank you for transferring me into Your Son's kingdom. Thank you for putting me into Your Son's body, the Church. Thank You that I belong to You.

Thank You for creating me as a new creation. Thank You for freeing me from the Law and from the bondage of the Sin Nature. Thank You for giving me life and transformation. Thank You for working in my life and changing me. Thank you for giving me joy and peace as I trust You. Thank You for forgiving my sins. Thank You for giving me victory in this life. Thank You for responding to me when I searched for You and came near to You. Thank You for conforming me to Your Son, Jesus. Thank You for making everything in my life work for my good, when I love You and am called according to Your purpose. Thank You for considering me worthy to suffer as Jesus suffered.

Thank You for all of those loving, caring Christians in my life. Thank You for the faithfulness of other Christians. Thank You for the hope of my resurrection. Thank You for Your mercy. Thank You for strengthening me with the power You used to raise Your Son from the dead. Thank You for opening my eyes so I can understand the Scriptures. Thank You for indwelling me. Thank You for walking with me through all the hardships of life. Thank You for teaching me. Thank You for comforting me. Thank You for changing my life. Thank You for giving me victory over sin. Thank You for guiding me. Thank You for accepting me into Your family.

You are trustworthy, so I can put everything about my life into Your hands. You will protect me regardless of the circumstances. You are for me, therefore, no one can be against me. Thank You that nothing can separate me from your love. I praise You, the One, True God, Who is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. You are able to "take charge" of my life, so I give You my life. I love You with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength. I am proud to be called a Son of God. I am proud to be Your servant. I am delighted to be able to walk and talk with You everyday. In Jesus Name, Amen.

The New Testament teaches us about rejoicing in the following verses:

Since the depression thinking-pattern is actually a "soup" of many negative feeling thinking-patterns, the solution involves studying what the New Testament teaches about all of the other feeling thinking-patterns in addition to the depression thinking-pattern. Therefore, you will need to consult the chapters on the anxiety, sorrow, fear, anger, and other thinking-patterns, to deal with all the symptoms of depression as it is defined by AAMI.

Each of the "mental health" symptoms listed below have corresponding solutions presented in various chapters of the book Natures of Mankind Psychology:

It is important to discard the depression thinking-pattern and replace it with the rejoicing thinking-pattern by renewing your mind. When you discard lies, myths, deceptions, and misconceptions and replace them with the truth, you are renewing your mind. You renew your mind by changing what you believe. When you change your belief system, you can be transformed (see Romans 12:1,2).

Discarding Lies and Embracing Truths You can change your personal world by changing what you believe. You can also begin the process of overlapping your personal world with God's real world. The world and the flesh will tell you lies through your experiences. The devil will plant lies and deceptions directly into your mind and they will always seem to be your thoughts. To renew your mind, use the belief, "I can reject each lie or deception and choose to replace it with the truth. Each time I do this, I will be renewing my mind." Compare each lie or deception in column 1 with the truth in column 2. When you get to the end of this table, there is a prayer that will help you change each lie or deception that you currently believe to the truth.

In the book Natures of Mankind Psychology, you can work through the process of changing or renewing your mind. You can replace the depression thinking-pattern with the rejoicing thinking pattern.

The contents of this web page are exerpted from Chapter 11, Replacing Depression with Rejoicing, in the book Natures of Mankind Psychology.

© 2007 by Jerold L. Reed All Rights Reserved

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