Interpersonal Contexts and Depression

I experienced conflicting opinions about the Coyne article this week. On one hand, I was really excited to read something about the involvement and importance of the interpersonal environment in depression...this is generally what I want to research. In my opinion, close relationships are inextricably linked to one's ability to function, cope, regulate emotions, and to successfully handle life complications. Coyne made some interesting assertions about this idea. Specifically, I was intrigued by his emphasis on significant others involved in the lives of depressed people. I think alot of us tend to attribute the dysfunction in depressed people's relationships to the depressed individual themselves (i.e intrapsychic causes) and do not consider what the other people in their lives bring to the equation. We assume that there is something inherently wrong with the depressed person like having distorted cognitions that contribute to interpersonal problems, but we often fall short of really considering the role of the depressed person's environment, and Coyne did a nice job emphasizing the reciprocal nature of people and the enviroment. Back to the significant others piece though...the article really got me thinking about the impact that these people have on a depressed person's ability to recover vs. remain in a depressive episode. The recurrence factor in depression is important here. Because depression is a recurrent disorder, a spouse for instance could learn to be understanding, sympathetic and sensitive to their depressed partner which would likely contribute to recovery. On the other hand, I can see many spouses becoming fed up, impatient and irritated, especially after dealing with several recurrences which could exacerbate the depression. It's almost like a never ending cycle in this case--someone becomes depressed which decreases the quality of their relationships and social interactions which only makes them more depressed.

Towards the end of the article, however, I was a alittle disappointed and confused. Actually, the summary pretty much sums this up. I found it kind of annoying that Coyne admitted to publishing an inadequate interactional model of depression in his 1976 article, but then basically used this model as the basis of his arguments. Additionally, the overall tone of the article stressed depression research to move beyond theoretical interpretations and assumptions, yet he supported an intervention-namely strategic therapy- that has not been empirically validated. Coyne states on pag 385: "Much of the strategic therapy literature consists of provocative case examples and transcripts; there are limited outcome data availalbe for the approach." In my opinion, if one is going to necessitate empirical support for the explanation of a disorder, he/she should be consistent and endorse treatments that have empirical support as well.