The Secret on Oprah: Can "The Secret" Really Help Depression?

Oprah recently re-aired a show featuring The Secret, and guests: Louise Hay, Cheryl Richardson, and Martha Beck - each offering their perspectives on the best-selling book by Rhonda Byrne and The Law of Attraction. One of the stories featured on this show was about a woman who overcame grief and depression after reading The Secret and realizing the dynamics of her thoughts and what they were creating in her life. But can The Secret really cure depression?

In the Oprah feature, the woman read the book and had the realization that her "victim" role was not an effective way to go through life; and it was, in fact, the true cause for her suffering. When she released her insistence on dwelling on past events, hurts, traumas, and losses, the suffering was replaced with a new awareness, a new peace, and a new sense of power. But did The Secret cure her depression, or was it cured by her new state of mind? Ah... That's the true secret. The Secret is simply a look at how our state of mind affects our physiology and our reality - at least our experience of reality. The Secret offered a perspective; but the woman cured her own depression by changing her perspective - and her state of mind and body.

That depression can be cured with our own thoughts isn't really a secret at all; clinical studies have always shown placebos to be just as effective as any anti-depressive medication - without the dangerous side-effects. So, what's a placebo; and how do placebos work? A placebo is a "pretend" remedy - typically a sugar pill, or some other remedy with "no known curative properties" - given to a patient who is told they are receiving a "real" drug in order to estimate how many people would recover without intervention. The only problem with this logic is that telling someone they are taking a cure IS affirmative intervention on their behalf; and it has been shown that taking any steps toward wellness produces a positive, healing result in a significant percentage of patients. In other words, thinking you are taking a pill to cure your depression works - even if it is a sugar pill - because depression is caused and cured by thoughts.

But what about the "chemical imbalance" we have all been told was the cause behind depression? What's the cause behind the "chemical imbalance?" And, if depression is caused by a chemical imbalance, why are chemicals not 100% effective? And, how do sugar pills "mimic," or replace, the "missing" or "imbalanced" chemistry? Depression is chronic sadness; sadness is the feeling we experience when we think thoughts of a negative nature - perhaps thoughts of loss, grief, frustration, or futility - among others. Thanks to some of the most recent scientific discoveries, medicine can now see and trace the pathway between our thoughts and the chemistry that causes our moods - including depressed or agitated emotional states. Thoughts produce electrical and chemical impulses which travel as electricity through the nervous system, and as hormones through the blood stream. These signals create the cellular behavior, responses, and expressions that collectively create our physical - and emotional - state from moment-to-moment.

Basically, our thoughts - even our unconscious thoughts - produce the electricity and chemistry that shapes and animates our bodies. Happy-thoughts produce hormones that make us feel good - a reward, and a signal that we are healing and growing. Negative-thoughts produce warning signals that our stress-response is active and we are in a harmful or destructive physiological state - we are breaking down our bodies, or storing extra fat, etc. The connection between mind and body, or thought and thing, is no longer a matter of speculation; it is a simple scientific observation taught to middle-school children in a variety of ways. The Secret isn't a discovery; it is a reminder that our thoughts are just the beginning of our experience. To change our experience, we must change our thoughts.

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