To help leaders gain an understanding of depression and to gain insight into the thought processes and feelings of a depressed student.

OVERVIEW

LEADER PREPARATION

• Visit a local mental health clinic and pick up information on depression. Get enough materials to distribute to your group of leaders. Read these to get a basic understanding of depression and local services providing counseling.
• Go to the library and obtain a copy of the article on depression found in Newsweek, May 4, 1987. This article clearly explains both the medical and emotional sides of depression.
• Gather a list of local counselors or trustworthy mental health professionals. Create a list to distribute to your leaders.
• Find the video, "Ordinary People." Fast forward to one of the scenes between Timothy Hutton and his psychiatrist (Judd Hirsch). An especially good one is near the end, after Timothy Hutton’s friend has committed suicide. Another good scene is when Hutton has a run-in with his ex-teammates and the conversation with his friend.
• Buy enough colored cellophane or 3-D glasses so that everyone in your leadership will be able to cover their eyes with it and distort their vision. If this is not feasible, obtain a colored transparency, an overhead projector, and colored transparency pens which have been disguised.
• Cut approximately ten shapes from different colored construction paper.

GROUP BUILDING

• Sing a few songs for unity, including any which deal with despair and hope.
• Show the scene from "Ordinary People." Afterwards, ask people for their general reaction to the scene:
• How do you describe Timothy Hutton’s character?
• What are his characteristics?
• What are his thought patterns like?
• How would you feel around someone who was acting like that?
• How would you deal with him? What would you say?

GROUP PRESENTATION

• Introduce the topic. Timothy Hutton is a classic example of clinical depression, which is a growing problem among adolescents. A Minnesota study estimated that 18% of the adolescent population in that state suffer from moderate to severe depression. The hardest thing to understand about a person who is depressed and to deal with as a leader is that one’s cognition is skewed. The very way in which they perceive, understand, and relate to reality has become biased. For a healthy person, this can be incredibly annoying (remember the film clip). It is helpful to try to walk in the shoes of the depressed person to engender compassion.
• Distribute the cellophane. Have people tie it over their eyes like a blindfold. If you do not have cellophane, set up and turn on the overhead with the colored transparency on it.
• Begin showing the colored squares to the group or drawing colored shapes on the overhead. Ask the group what colors and shapes they see.
• After they name the color, tell them what color it really is. You may want to save this information until all the shapes have been shown. The point of this exercise is to show them what cognitive distortion and depression is like. No matter how hard they try to see the correct color, they cannot. Everything appears tinted to them. Depression seems to tint all of life black, as the cellophane tinted their vision all one shade.

These are some suggested questions to bring about an understanding of depression:

• Why couldn’t anyone name the correct color?
• What did the cellophane do to your vision?
• How did you feel when you kept missing the color?
• Why could you name the right shape?
• In what ways was distorting your vision like a clinical depression?
• Does this help you understand depression in a new way? How?
• Why is seeing the shape but not seeing the colors like a depression? What does that say about how a depressed adolescent feels and experiences reality?
• With this understanding of depression, what are some ways to help a depressed adolescent? What do you think would be helpful? Harmful?

WRAP-UP

• The point of this exercise is to help leaders to understand what happens to the cognition of a depressed adolescent.
• It is a growing problem among adolescents and is much more severe than a "blue funk." If a depression continues for more than two weeks, it is a serious problem demanding immediate attention.
• It is critical to remember that the negative way a depressed person views the world really is the way they see it. Depression is a world of burning misery. There is no joy in life, and the depressed individual, once the depression is clinical, constantly berates themselves in their own mind.
• One of the best things that youth leaders can do is to stand with the person and let them know that you care and that there is hope. Realize that they will probably reject this and may even be hostile. Stay with them and help them to get help.

EVALUATION AND FOLLOW-UP

• If resources allow, photocopy the Newsweek article on depression.
• Find an article or writing authored by someone decribing their own depression. What would it be like to feel like this?

IMPLICATIONS

1. This discussion is very significant because depression is greatly misunderstood. Often, the depressed student is viewed as a whiner or a whimp because he or she cannot seem to handle difficult situations. The purpose of this discussion is to get individuals to understand what is going on inside a depressive. Understanding can bring compassion and caring.
2. This discussion can be used to

• • Help friends of a depressive understand what is going on with their friend and view depression as a disease, like high blood pressure.
  • Help youth workers train leaders to identify depression and sensitize their leaders to the plight of a depressed youth.
  • Teach a mental health class to illustrate depression and educate students about the warning signs.