Do you want to answer these questions about the mind and the body?

1. Yes.
2. They work in concert. Neither can trump the other.
3. If the person can “just suck it up,” it’s a bad day, not clinical depression.

I believe we all have a consciousness outside of electric impulses in our brain. I also strongly believe the mind can heal the body. I think it’s the brain that forms the body. Check out the documentary ‘What the bleep do we know’.

1. Why can’t the mind just be electrical signals? A moving photograph is just pixels. A beautiful woman or a handsome man is only a set of symmetrical features and biological characteristics deemed evolutionarily desirable. These facts do not make the photograph less moving or the woman less beautiful or the man less handsome. Knowing that your favorite song is just a series of vibrations and the rise and fall of pitch does not make you listen to it less. Yes, the mind is a series of electrical signals, but without the basic components there would be nothing.

2. I cannot add anything to nikipedia’s answer to this question. Lurve to you, niki!

3. Depression is a hard thing to discuss. It has been proven that in the case of clinical depression, there is actually something wrong in the brain. In some cases, there is too much of a chemical, in others, too little. I would agree that there are some people who cry wolf, but clinical depression does exist and it is a problem.

1. Yes, we do.
2. I do believe, for the most part, that mental is more powerful than physical. There is definitely a “mind over matter” aspect to human beings that needs to be further explored. I don’t think we have any idea of what our minds are capable of yet. The biggest limitation we have right now is believing that we have strict limitations. That said, the body is obviously important. We could not survive or function without our bodies, at least for now.
3. If you tell someone with clinical depression to “just suck it up”, you may as well just say, “kill yourself now” instead. It’s real and it’s complicated.

About depression, I believe what you focus most on, you will receive the most of. So if all one thinks about is how bad they feel, they will get more of that feeling. It’s really important to focus on the things you enjoy and like in life and in doing so you will receive more of the things you love and enjoy, being able to recognize them more clearly as they come to you.

1) What difference does it make?
2) Maybe, sometimes.
3) Tough love is not the thing to help real depression. It might work for the drama queens, but not the suicidal.

I only want to address the depression aspect- I believe some are depressed, even if not “clinically” (whatever that REALLY means), some can be crying wolf, some can get over it singularly using their own resources, some need different kinds of outside help. The reason I feel so strongly about this is that I truly believe in post- traumatic stress. The brain isn’t fully developed until around age 23. The emotional, rational, memory, clarity, etc. centers of it aren’t mature. So think about if something happens (everyone’s had something!) at a much earlier age even. Your idenity can be and is shaped before you even understand what consequences are. I’m rambling. What I mean is that one can have a different reality of things and that is what is so hard to control. The distortion of one’s self from any trauma can override your parents’ “roll with the punches, pull your self up by your boot straps” ethic. From my experience, no one who is just lazy will claim to be depressed to such a level where you can’t totally call their b.s.

Mind is just a metaphor. Sure, concepts of electrical chemicals running between cells is part of it; but so is the idea of thoughts, and memory, and self. Maybe when we say we have a mind, we just mean that we think. A mind is what thinks. Then the question becomes “what is thinking?”

Mind certainly plays a role in physical health. The placebo effect, and the power of hypnosis are well-documented phenomena.

Depression? I used to think people just needed to pull themselves together. I thought taking drugs was a kind of laziness. I didn’t think people were faking it.

Now, I’ve been diagnosed as bipolar, and I’ve experienced depressions that took me this close to slipping out my 8th floor window. At those times, I knew I would never, ever feel better. I knew I was an utter failure, and the most worthless person alive.

Fortunately, now, I can cast doubt on those thoughts, and that seems to be because of the drugs. The depressions seemed random, and unrelated to anything going on in my life. And yet…. and yet….

Even when I am at my worst, I still have this feeling that if I just wanted to, I could flick a switch, and be out of the depression. The problem is, I just don’t seem to want to. Sometimes I think if someone pressed me hard enough, I would pull out of it. Sometimes I think I would just fall.

Re: what niki said above:

“If the person can “just suck it up,” it’s a bad day, not clinical depression.”

Bulletproof.