Melancholia is what T.S. Eliot called the “paralyzing force, gesture without motion.”

Jim Cornelius

At a party recently, a psychoanalyst from La Jolla reported that he had sold his large house and moved into a condominium. When, asked how he had made the adjustment from large to confining quarters, from the liberty of a creative patio to the restriction of a minuscule terrace, he replied, “For several weeks, whenever I came home, I found myself depressed.”

What is the difference between that form of depression which is a natural concomitant of modern living — problems dealing with changes in dwelling, jobs, mates, feelings of doubt and uncertainty about oneself and the future — and that state which requires professional help? None of us is free from feelings of depression, anxiety, aggression or guilt. None of us, as Sophocles conclusively demonstrated, can live a full life without experiencing a considerable measure of pain. Melancholia, the stock-in-trade of the 19th Century romantics, or what T.S. Eliot called the “paralyzing force, gesture without motion,” testifies to our commonality in emotional anguish. And no one, neither the infant who has to be assured that its cries will be answered, nor the physician whose work consists of ameliorating emotional aches, is free of these debilitating thrusts against the fragile, if endlessly accommodating, psyche.

For this reason, the television special on mental health. The Thin Edge, presented by Channels 15 and 28 on alternate Monday nights, from March 31-May 26, should draw a wide and concerned audience.

The initial program, aired Monday night, March 31, to 254 stations by Public Broadcasting Service, was excellent, not merely for the cogency of its presentation, but because it provided a public service in listing the phone numbers of agencies which could immediately handle requests for help. With the aid of host and producer David Prowett and many startling visuals — including one attempted suicide — the audience was informed of the magnitude of the problem of depression, and the concerted efforts employed to mitigate its devastating effects.

For the 19 million people who suffer from severe depression, the inability to cope with day-to-day stress becomes so marked that they often cease functioning as contributing members of an on-going society, whether the society is defined in the narrowest sense of the family, or in broader, cosmic terms.

What are the signs of this grave, common illness? Since grief, anger, guilt, fear, and apprehension are encountered in some measure by all of us, one touchstone would be duration or length of time. To mourn the loss of someone dear to us for 3 months to a year is legitimate, normal grief. The perpetuation of this grief to the state where the individual becomes immobilized by it, means that the individual has passed the “thin edge” where help should be sought.

The most probable causes of depression are the loss of the sense of oneself and the loss of one’s value system. It is interesting to note that until 1960, little literature existed on depression in children. One of the most touching aspects of the television program consisted of statements made by youngsters, all under the age of 12, in expressing sadness, loneliness, loss. A live session of a 9 year old with prior suicidal tendencies was also recorded. This reversed the folkloristic notion that depression afflicts only the middle aged and the aged.

The depressed individual will communicate emotional pain by sleeplessness, loss of appetite, loss of sexual interest, loss of concentration, sadness often accompanied by sudden outbursts of tears, withdrawal, helplessness, and finally possible suicide. Two times as many women attempt suicide, but three times as many men succeed, because the techniques used by males are more violent and decisive. (A Southern California psychoanalyst who studied serious one-car traffic accidents in Los Angeles discovered that 50% of the accidents were suicide attempts). The same ratio is true for those seeking professional help for depression: two times as many women show up in public and private mental health facilities. Particularly in our culture where alcohol elicits peer approval, men are inclined to resort to public and private drinking as a way of coping with depression. Since men put off therapeutic aid by use of drink, changing jobs, shifting mates et cetera, when they do bring themselves, or are brought, for therapy their illness is generally more advanced than women's and they are therefore more difficult to treat.

The Thin Edge program explored the causes of depression and the methods used for coping with it: psychotherapy, which is lengthy and costly (2-4 years in time, and with private scales ranging from $35 to $60 for the 50 minute hour): drug therapy, including the most publicized, lithium, which has proved an effective anti-depressant in 2-3 weeks; and convulsive therapy, or Electric Shock Therapy, now applied under strict supervision in California. Drugs and electric shock make for actual brain changes. Those taking lithium must have a blood test at least once a month; the new law in California regulating convulsive or shock therapy requires the approval of three psychiatric physicians before administration. The purpose of any of these therapies is to reverse the trend of joyless hopelessness to one where the patient may be returned to the realm of the living, with its attendant pleasures as well as pain.

The Thin Edge segment, The Shadowed Valley, was an intelligently produced and well documented program. Many viewers who will watch open heart surgery and the latest findings in cancer will veer away from the subject of mental health because they find it too threatening. Who wants to open the Pandora's box of bedlam?

Let me assure those who did not watch it. but who have the opportunity to do so in the coming weeks, that there is nothing frightening about the series. One usually finds protection from the nostrum that mental illness strikes the next person’s family and not one’s own, or that the seeking of aid is a sign of weakness. Exactly the opposite is true. It requires courage and fortitude to cry HELP, and fortunately, as I will describe in my next article, ample facilities exist in the San Diego area to meet human needs, regardless of economic level.

The Thin Edge will appear bi-weekly, on alternate weeks, and will consist of a one hour national broadcast, followed by a half-hour local program. For those like myself, who live on the side of the hill in La Jolla that does not get Channel 15, the half-hour program is available via the newly devised Channel 59 — turn the round antennae of your set toward UCSD and 59 will flash on your screen with clarity.

AGGRESSION: April 14, 8 p.m.: April 19. 10 p.m. Local program following: Range and kinds of therapy. Drs. Brown and Emami

GUILT: April 28,8 p.m.; May 3, 9 p.m. Local program following: Mental Illness and the law.

ANXIETY: May 17,9 p.m.; May 18.2 p.m. Local program following: (tentatively) Child psychiatry.

SEXUALITY: May 26,8 p.m.; May 31, 10 p.m. Local program following: Panel of experts will answer phone calls.

Whether you chose one or all of these. The Thin Edge should prove knowledgeable and provocative. It’s not the same order of experience as watching Cher gyrate phallically in glitter, but it may give your heart ease.