ABSTRACT
Yet, in using this story as an illustration of general principles - here the difference between adaptive and maladaptive behaviour - we have only just begun. What about the development of depressive symptoms? Surely it is hardly possible to doubt that, in this case, the symptoms were the result of unexpressed
2 Psychotherapy in everyday life feelings - certainly they disappeared when the feelings were expressed. These feelings started by being out of her awareness, and they could not have been expressed unless she had come to know what they were, and thus it is important to note that their expression was preceded by insight - the knowledge that one of their main components was jealousy. But why should the feelings have been out of her awareness? Well, jealousy is a painful emotion. But this does not really seem to be an adequate explanation - we all of us have to face jealousy at one time or another, and most of us manage without getting symptoms. There must presumably be some special quality for her about the emotion of jealousy. If we examine the story for clues more closely, we may come upon the self-hatred that was prominent in her depressive attack. It is of course possible to say that self-reproaches are often a feature of depressive illness and to look no further. But a little thought will show that this gets one nowhere, and indeed it is utterly unscientific simply to dismiss phenomena by saying that they often appear. Why should self-reproaches occur in depressive illness? Could it be that part of the explanation is that depression often has something to do with guilt; and that in this girl's case she found jealousy difficult to face because she felt guilty about it? If this is so some of the therapeutic effect could well have followed not merely from the discharge of unexpressed emotion (though this almost certainly was a factor), but from a form of emotional discovery: that it was possible to face jealous feelings and to express them in such a way that they could be accepted by the people towards whom they were directed, and so far from making the situation worse, could actually resolve it. Another observation now falls into place: having discovered that jealousy is not such a terrible emotion after all, from then on this girl was able to participate in group situations - an unending source of potential jealousy - in a way that had never been possible for her before.
