RUNNING HEAD: CASE STUDY

Case Study: Past and Future Lives in Depression

Jordan Geiger and Zoe Clymer
Ivy Tech Community College
Psychology 101 20-F
November 9, 2016

RUNNINNG HEAD: CASE STUDY

Depression is a serious medical condition in which a person feels very sad, hopeless, and
unimportant and often is unable to live in a normal way. People who have depression can feel a
loss of interest in activities that they used to do every day. When they lose interest in these
activities it can affect their daily life. Everyone can develop some type of depression throughout
their life, but if it doesnt last longer than two weeks it cant be consider a disorder.
The title of the article was The Structure of Past and Future Lives in Depression. The
authors that helped with article are, Time Dalgleish, Emma Hill, Ann-Marie J Golden, Nicola
Morant, and Barnaby D Dunn. In the article the authors talked about how when depression
occurs its often triggered by certain experiences in a persons life. Their reasoning for doing this
experiment was to investigate the organization of past knowledge in those with depression and
compare it with never depressed individuals (Dalgleish, Hill, Golden, Morant, Dunn). They
predicted that depression was characterized by reappearing memories from the past.
There were three groups in this experiment, the depressed, remitted, and control group.
The first thing the people involved in the experiment were asked to do was to put their past life
into chapters. They were told that the chapters did not need to have a clear beginning or end, they
could also put other life chapters in with their other chapters. They were given a blank table and
told to put their life chapters at the top of each column. They were also told to add their age at
the beginning and end of each chapter. They started at age 11-12.
The participants were then given a deck of cards with adjectives on them so they could
put them with each chapter of their lives and were also given a sheet of paper to record which
adjectives went with what chapters. The cards had numbers on them to make it easier for them to

RUNNINNG HEAD: CASE STUDY

place each card with a chapter. The thing they were asked to is to consider the future and to
imagine the chapters of their life that were still to come (Dalgleish, Hill, Golden, Morant, Dunn).
They were then asked to record what they saw on a table like they did before and they were
given the same cards and asked to sort the cards and predict how their life would be during each
of the future chapters, using the same approach as before (Dalgleish, Hill, Golden, Morant,
Dunn).
The results of the experiment showed that in the depressed group, six participants met the
criteria for PTSD, six for generalized anxiety disorder, three for specific phobia, two for OCD,
one for panic disorder, one for hypochondria one for agoraphobia, and one for bulimia
(Dalgleish, Hill, Golden, Morant, Dunn). For the remitted group, there was one with alcohol
dependence, three with past alcohol dependence, two with PTSD, one with social phobia, two
with agoraphobia, one with substance abuse, two with bulimia, and one with anorexia.
The descriptive data for the study for the participants obtained states that there are three
participants. Each Ranging of 52, 49, and 51 years of age, placing them in the middle aged
group. These participants had to meet the qualifications of being fluent in English and being
within the age group of 40 to 60 years of age (Psychiatric Association).
With the type of study, they used, they came to find that the cause of their participants
depression came from their past life experiences. Depending on what those were, manifested and
caused them to develop depression. Their study had their participants choose from a series of
cards that would describe their past life. Each chose a card with depression on it, along with
other things they experienced and found familiar.

RUNNINNG HEAD: CASE STUDY

This type of study allows for more ways of research because it allows the patients to look
back into their past lives and think about their future lives. This will introduce them to their
issues they have encountered, allowing them to talk about their problems and issues that might
have caused their depression in the first place.
There are some limitations to the research, they state that most of their participants
already had some type of disorder already in progress. Another issue is that they state that they
did not assess feelings of hopelessness about the future other than the card sorting. Another is
that the sample sizes of the groups were not at large, they were fairly small which could affect
the results (Dozois & Dobson).
Based on the research and what they have concluded from their research. It is most likely
to be the cause of his break up with his girlfriend. Once the depressions for Josh set in, deeper
thoughts came into play like; Ill never find love again and more toxic thoughts like that. This
can cause even more depression that persist even longer causing more damage. Once you tell
yourself something over and over again even though it may not be true, you eventually start to
believe yourself. This could also be why being depressed is so hard to cure. Joshs feeling of
hopelessness and not being able to completely simple task are that cause of constantly thinking
negatively.
The Psychological perspective that would most fit this theory, test, and study would most
likely to be neuroticism. With the findings and the procedures followed to gain the evidence they
acquired through their study and research. It came to the conclusion that their test subjects
focused mainly on their past lives with the result of having high amounts of issues in result of
developing depression. Neuroticism explains that people that fall under this perspective obtain
moody, irritable and unstable emotionally. This could be the result of having depression.

RUNNINNG HEAD: CASE STUDY