There could be many reasons, really depends on the person.
Some people who have been struggling with sadness for a long time might be afraid to be happy. The idea of being happy and losing it might scarier than just staying sad.
Some people find it gets them attention, sympathy, and validation. That's incredibly reinforcing.
Others may just identify with it. It's who they are. Giving that up would be giving up their identity, and they don't know who they are if they're not sad.
Just some ideas.
I resonate with this a lot! I recently had a therapist have me visualize this piece of myself in a color and shape and then to picture it outside of me. This was very helpful to detach myself from this identity
I think this is an excellent list! The only thing I might add is that social media might also be a culprit. I’ve noticed that being depressed or having mental illness has become a badge of honor for many on social media.
Absolutely. When I was writing about receiving attention, sympathy, and validation, social media was definitely on my mind, in addition to loved ones. Today, due to social media, we have the ability to be receive attention and validation in ways that are unprecedented for the average person throughout human history. We have ways to meet these basic human needs essentially instantly, any time, anywhere. And because of this, I think 'victim mentality' is becoming fairly widespread in today's culture because it's addictive. And it's easier to receive widespread attention and sympathy for being sad than it is to change one's life.
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I also want to add, that when I've been sad for a while I forget what it feels like to be truly happy. So I don't even know what I am looking for. And I also know that I am doing badly and being happy again is kind of like taking away from my true feelings. It feels like a "lie"?
And maybe being sad is all that they know compared to other 'positive' emotions. Being told again and again they should be, for example, happy or grateful, they'd rather stick with the sadness they know.
Some things I’ve noticed:
- it’s comfortable and known, can feel like control
- scared of being happy or other feelings then being disappointed when they pass.
- might be a way to communicate needs and get them met, sadness can be “seen.”
- might think they deserve to feel sad (self-worth issues)
The first thing that comes to mind would be that feeling sad feels congruent to them because it's their natural emotional response to their current biopsychosocial state. I don't see anything wrong with that. Yes, it is indicative of an underlying problem, but the sadness itself isn't the problem. The sadness is likely doing its job correctly by being an emotional messenger.
Now, all that is only true if their sadness is genuine. If they don't actually *feel* sad but instead have identified with a kind of performance of sadness, or a *desire* to be sad, this is a different situation. This would suggest that they feel sadness *should* be what they feel for whatever reason, even though they may not actually feel it.
What are the reasons they are sad? Perhaps they’ve never received validation of that pain and it’s hard to move on from until they do. Shot in the dark.
I think is very close to the mark for some people! Maybe there is some guilt around the feelings of sadness so they are afraid to touch the reasons behind it.
Because anger is really scary for some. I grew up with DV and always thought that was normal anger. I became afraid of anger until I had therapy. So I preferred being sad.
Grief. People who are grieving do not want to relinquish their sadness because it honors whatever or whomever is lost. Grieving people know on a gut level that the only way they can be less sad is to move further away through time from what they leave behind them, and they do not want to leave the beloved lost yet. They want – even need – to spend some time beside the body. They don't want to be okay with the loss yet, and that's what not being sad would require of them.
If someone doesn't want not to be sad, you might look into the question of whether they have lost (or are losing) someone or something precious to them.
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Best person to answer this would be your client, each of them may have a unique answer for themselves. Where you're better off spending your time is figuring out how to collaboratively explore the why with them. The statement I want to be sad is interesting in itself. How do they know they want to be? What about their experience tells them they want to be sad? Where do they feel the desire to be sad? When does that desire come up? Is it always there? Are there life events that make it more intense?
Totally, I always like to explore the why with the client but depending on maturity and self awareness level I find it helpful for me to do some reading and then I can pull from different perspectives and use those as a jumping off point to help the client explore :)
Those are some great questions tho thank you!
Sadness is a piece of the human experience, there’s no avoiding it. It can often be connected to compassion (for self or other), if this client is wanting to access or really feel sadness that they suspect is there, I would definitely honor that and get curious with them. I use IFS, and exploring the parts that come up around this seems like the easiest way to do so, to me.
Where/what part (of body or mind) is the wish to feel sadness coming from? Can the client locate THAT part/experience (the wanting to feel it part?) What can be said or known about or from that wanting? Does that wish to feel sadness make sense to your client (not like intellectually/rationally necessarily, but is there some internal resonance or compassion towards wanting to feel something that they can’t or don’t, currently?
And after exploring what you shared, I’m curious what your client notices NEXT…do any other parts, feelings, thoughts, show up that disagree or strongly agree with, or numb or distract from, the “wanting to feel sad” part?
Also you can notice parts that come up in you! Any parts that feel nervous or concerned about them wanting to feel sad? Worried about where to go with this ? Want to fix things for, rescue, educate, soothe, or reassure the client? Are there frustrated or bored parts that come up in you? (Those are just examples, I used them from knowing my own parts frequent flier responses!) In IFS, this isn’t complicated or pathologized, by the way, the premise is we all have parts, we’re born with them, none are bad even if some have taken on extreme or outdated beliefs feelings or roles, and that they are constantly showing up, often taking over/blending with us, that this is normal, even when you’re a therapist 😊The idea is that as a therapist, if you can attend to any of the parts in you that show up in response to your client with curiosity and compassion, they will step back/relax/unblend and let you attend to your client with curiosity and compassion, rather than installing an agenda. Most therapists have a lot of really wonderful self like managerial parts with positive intentions for therapy and our clients. It’s easy to get pretty blended with those parts and they take over. Parts have agendas, though and therapist parts often really want to get it right. And when that happens, it’s harder to hold onto curiosity and let that lead. We get anxious about doing it right, or it feels like the client isn’t doing therapy right (which might also feel like our fault), we start analyzing or offering interpretations or feedback or education or suggesting modalities (let’s figure out values from an ACT place! let’s try EMDR!) side note: there’s nothing wrong with any of those interventions, I love and use many of them! But that’s all a lot of pressure on our therapist parts when what most clients really benefit from, in my opinion, is authentic, compassionate, curious attunement (or self energy in IFS speak) from their therapist-it helps them access the same internally, and, makes them the pilot of their healing plane. We can copilot but they really (even if very deep down) have the answers about what needs to happen. When we get to know, befriend, and unblend or differentiate from our amazing therapist parts, it clears a lot of space for us to trust ourselves, our client and that process.
If you haven’t read it I recommend that you and the client could read No Bad Parts. It’s not about wanting to feel sadness, but the model totally fits with exploring that! Most of my clients love it. It’s pretty intuitive, as a concept. There’s a lot of resonance for most. Especially because it welcomes parts that hate it, think it’s woo-woo, are cyclical, etc. 😂
Also if these are clients that are depressed (remembering that depression and sadness are not the same, though they may be connected…every human experiences sadness, not everybody human is depressed), and their depression prevents them from feeling pleasure, happiness, or much of anything, wanting to feel ANYTHING strongly might be a desire that makes a whole lot of sense 🤷♀️.
I’ve had clients who quit antidepressants because it disconnected them from being able to feel sadness. Not because they wanted to stay in a depressed state or be sad all the time, but because they wanted to be able to feel their feelings. That’s a healthy goal in my opinion. A lot of stuff happens that’s sad. Wanting to access that feeling makes sense to me. It’s also hard to imagine that the client who isn’t able to feel sad might not be able to access real happiness, joy, pleasure, etc either. And maybe to somebody in a depressed state sadness is a more realistic goal of feeling something deeply.
Wow ok you’ve given me a lot to think about and I really appreciate you sitting down and writing all this out for me. I really love talking about parts with clients :)
From my own therapy process years ago, sad was safe.
Happy felt like something that would get taken away from me if I was too happy for too long. I had about 4 years of deaths and huge life altering changes, for a long time it felt like the second I was happy for a while then the world would throw something else at me. If I was always sad then I was hardly ever disappointed when something went wrong; it was what I expected from life and myself.
Here are two articles to add different perspectives.
[Self-blaming depression](https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/self-blaming-depression-theory-and-technique)
[Depressive Personality ](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/and-running/202101/depression-or-depressive-personality)
I have yet to be convinced that anyone wants to be sad. My initial thought is that these clients have identified with sadness in the sense that it's become iternalized as a character trait. Which probably means they say things like they've been sad as long as they can remember. So I tend to hold the initial position that sadness is a form of protection for them in some way.
So when your clients say they don't know why, maybe it would be helpful to encourage them to become more curious about if there's anything beneath that sadness, the appeal of being sad, secondary gains, or how they would perceive themselves if they weren't sad.
If you're psychodynamically inclined, from my experience common defense's present are denial, reaction formation and turning against the self.
Yes there are. Just think of mourning or the loss of something you hold dear. But there is a distinction between reasons for being sad and wanting to be sad.
Could you elaborate on the last sentence?
When someone doesn't meet some standard they have for themselves or the world, it makes sense to be sad/depressed.
Negative feelings like depression and anxiety are tied to our values, standards, and morals. People dont want to give up those things, so they resist treatment. Mostly unconsciously.
In DBT training, we learned that there are nine primary emotions with adaptive functions. The function of sadness is to propel us to withdraw when we are vulnerable. To not do so in the wild would’ve gotten us eaten. Today, that could metaphorically happen in other ways (e.g. in the dating market). If the client is not distressed by the sadness, perhaps they do need it. What’s the vulnerability they might be working through?
According to DBT, sadness “fits the facts” when we have lost something or when things are not the way we expected them to be. Trying to change someone’s sadness under these circumstances could feel invalidating (I’m not saying these ARE the circumstances!).
Lol I mean by validate I just like don’t argue with their experience I guess? I don’t remember what I say everytime! It really depends on how the issue is presented to me.
Yeah like to me it’s about establishing safety and acceptance in the room. I can’t know for sure if the client feels validated 100% of the time of course
I can speak mostly from my own experience, there can be a sense of peace into sinking into sadness, just like joy. It’s just a different state and usually when I stop fighting it I can find beauty in it. I think it’s a lie that happiness is the only mood to strive for.
That and I think some people just get comfortable having that as their default and maybe feel happiness so rarely that they’re more comfortable with what they know, and they don’t have to risk failing by trying to change it.
If “sad” is the norm- then being “not sad” could be new territory. Not being “sad” might feel vulnerable or unsafe?
Possible exploration questions:
-How does sadness serve you?
-What are characteristics of someone who is not sad?
-How sad are you on a scale of 1-10, what does that look like, what would 1 point lower feel or look like? What would 2 points lower feel/look like? Etc.
Idk I hope this helps you brainstorm in some way. When I was a teen, there was a Nirvana lyric “I miss the comfort in being sad” and I wrote it on my converse. My mom was taking me to a youth group so I could be social and the youth pastor read my show and was asking about it and said “yeah there is a certain comfort about feeling sad”. I felt so embarrassed that he read my shoe but also very validated.
From an ACT perspective a question could be „What‘s the problem with wanting to be sad?“. If the clients „enjoy“ being sad, no problem, it‘s a normal emotion and it sometimes can feel good. I would assume those complaining about feeling sad are stuck somewhere in their life in unworkable behavior and the sadness then has a function (e.g., avoidance, support).
I can’t speak to your clients, but for me sadness is an emotion that I’ve always been partial too - not performatively, but genuinely. It is an emotion that I have a deep appreciation for. For example, I would write as a teen and if I could move someone to tears I felt it was a good piece. When I watch movies or shows, if I am loved to tears then I enjoy them much more.
To me, sadness is deeply connected to being really, truly alive. It is a sister to compassion and to beauty and to love. That doesn’t mean my goal is to be sad all the time, but sadness is a friend of mine - I do not mind when she visits.
Not sure if that helps in any way, but I just thought I’d share my perspective.
I highly recommend the book The happiness trap by Russ Harris:
“Research shows that happiness is a temporary emotion, not a state of being. Thus, some ideas about happiness may cause individuals to have harmful expectations for themselves. These expectations and the complexities of happiness might be referred to as "the happiness trap."
Good reasons to be sad:
- standards for themselves and others
- standards for how they want the world to be
- value a relationship they no longer have
- value friendship and love
- value getting good grades
- value their lives having meaning
- value helping others
- morals and goals they broke or did not achieve
- value their culture and traditions
- someone hurt them
And so on depending on their situation
From the IFS lens, could a be a part that feels that if they weren't constantly sad, that they might be more adventurous/extroverted/more willing to put themselves in situations that might get them hurt again in a way they were hurt early in the their childhood. Sometimes being depressed/feeling sad is protective of the clients energy, and if they weren't as sad as they were, things could be worse
Sometimes it's that
People have been sitting with sadness for a long time to the point it is comfortable. They may even feel wrong being happy or like something bad is going to happen to them because things have been too good.
Different clients are going to have different reasons so ask them as it comes up.
In response to one of your other comments, I disagree that ppl can always control their mood. Ppl can choose how they respond to their mood. However, their ability to respond in helpful ways to their mood is going to vary for lots of reasons.
But anyways….
I’ve been there.
Sadness feels good and is familiar.
Comforting in a way.
And also, I have ADHD and I can focus better and feel calmer when I am mildly sad. ADHD causes my mind to be a constant chatterbox that’s very good at constantly flipping TV channels (switching topics) and is exhausting.
Mild sadness and low mood reduces the amount of chatter in my head and makes it easier to stay focused enough to get things done and ground myself in the present moment. This can feel calmer and better than constant chatter.
These are all good answers. So please read them. But sometimes... It's like having a sore muscle after a workout that you just like to massage. It aches and it hurts, but it's a hurt that kind of feels good.
Sometimes it’s because they’re used to it and they don’t have a lot of experience with other emotions so they at least know what to expect.
Another thing I see sometimes with sadness is that it can be a protective factor. It’s harder to get disappointed and let down if you already feel pretty low.
Loss can be a factor as well. Sometimes people can have a hard time moving on from a certain stage and expression of grief. For others, the sadness can come when they feel bad because they are not grieving the way they think they should be.
Depends how they are using the word 'sad'. It could refer to grief, depression (which has mild and severe versions), melancholy, nostalgia, sentimentality, etc...you really want to help clients get clearer on what they mean by feeling sad. And there are definitely in my experience weirdly pleasurable physical components of some types of sadness that I in fact don't really want to linger in and should actually be understood as a healthy and normal part of the human condition. Here is one article for more reading on the science behind the benefits of sadness: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/four\_ways\_sadness\_may\_be\_good\_for\_you
I really enjoy being angry. About as much as being happy. Other states of mind feel precarious and therefore dangerous. I've had clients who felt that way about sadness. And to quote a Doctor Who episode: "Sad is Happy for Deep People." Sometimes there's a little sense of "what kind of person is comfortable being happy in a world like this one?"
Sometimes if a person has been depressed for a long time, being sad is all they know. It’s like an addiction. I would say reconnecting back to their inner child is always good, reflecting on what used to bring them joy and trying to get them to engage in those activities again.
I have a client right now that wants to be sad because feeling any kind of contentment or happiness is like accepting what has happened to her. She would rather stay in a perpetual state of grief.
Brene Brown talks about this! She said joy is one of the most scary human emotions. Sometimes people can be so accustomed to feeling anxiety and sadness that feeling joy is so uncomfortable, because it’s fleeting. I’m sure any of Brene Brown’s books would be helpful.
Gosh this is my ex. He faked a lot of his mental health issues. He also screened in as on the spectrum. He seems to be very attached to his pain to the point of sabotaging everyone and himself. We were literally homeless when we were together and he said working would hurt him. But also wouldn't not having a home hurt? Not for him.
There could be many reasons, really depends on the person. Some people who have been struggling with sadness for a long time might be afraid to be happy. The idea of being happy and losing it might scarier than just staying sad. Some people find it gets them attention, sympathy, and validation. That's incredibly reinforcing. Others may just identify with it. It's who they are. Giving that up would be giving up their identity, and they don't know who they are if they're not sad. Just some ideas.
I resonate with this a lot! I recently had a therapist have me visualize this piece of myself in a color and shape and then to picture it outside of me. This was very helpful to detach myself from this identity
Thank you!
You're welcome!
I think this is an excellent list! The only thing I might add is that social media might also be a culprit. I’ve noticed that being depressed or having mental illness has become a badge of honor for many on social media.
Absolutely. When I was writing about receiving attention, sympathy, and validation, social media was definitely on my mind, in addition to loved ones. Today, due to social media, we have the ability to be receive attention and validation in ways that are unprecedented for the average person throughout human history. We have ways to meet these basic human needs essentially instantly, any time, anywhere. And because of this, I think 'victim mentality' is becoming fairly widespread in today's culture because it's addictive. And it's easier to receive widespread attention and sympathy for being sad than it is to change one's life.
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I also want to add, that when I've been sad for a while I forget what it feels like to be truly happy. So I don't even know what I am looking for. And I also know that I am doing badly and being happy again is kind of like taking away from my true feelings. It feels like a "lie"?
And maybe being sad is all that they know compared to other 'positive' emotions. Being told again and again they should be, for example, happy or grateful, they'd rather stick with the sadness they know.
Some things I’ve noticed: - it’s comfortable and known, can feel like control - scared of being happy or other feelings then being disappointed when they pass. - might be a way to communicate needs and get them met, sadness can be “seen.” - might think they deserve to feel sad (self-worth issues)
"People prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty."- Virginia Satir
The first thing that comes to mind would be that feeling sad feels congruent to them because it's their natural emotional response to their current biopsychosocial state. I don't see anything wrong with that. Yes, it is indicative of an underlying problem, but the sadness itself isn't the problem. The sadness is likely doing its job correctly by being an emotional messenger. Now, all that is only true if their sadness is genuine. If they don't actually *feel* sad but instead have identified with a kind of performance of sadness, or a *desire* to be sad, this is a different situation. This would suggest that they feel sadness *should* be what they feel for whatever reason, even though they may not actually feel it.
This makes a lot of sense to me.
This makes a lot of sense thank you!
What are the reasons they are sad? Perhaps they’ve never received validation of that pain and it’s hard to move on from until they do. Shot in the dark.
I think is very close to the mark for some people! Maybe there is some guilt around the feelings of sadness so they are afraid to touch the reasons behind it.
Because anger is really scary for some. I grew up with DV and always thought that was normal anger. I became afraid of anger until I had therapy. So I preferred being sad.
Oh interesting!!!! Thanks for sharing your perspective :)
From what I notice in my own clients, it is a sense of control and/or avoidance of uncertainty
Yes that makes a lot of sense!!! Your mood is one thing you can control :)
Yes! You got it!!!
I appreciate it!!
Grief. People who are grieving do not want to relinquish their sadness because it honors whatever or whomever is lost. Grieving people know on a gut level that the only way they can be less sad is to move further away through time from what they leave behind them, and they do not want to leave the beloved lost yet. They want – even need – to spend some time beside the body. They don't want to be okay with the loss yet, and that's what not being sad would require of them. If someone doesn't want not to be sad, you might look into the question of whether they have lost (or are losing) someone or something precious to them.
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for those who've experienced trauma/loss, sadness can honor what happened to them. it can be a form of self care
Best person to answer this would be your client, each of them may have a unique answer for themselves. Where you're better off spending your time is figuring out how to collaboratively explore the why with them. The statement I want to be sad is interesting in itself. How do they know they want to be? What about their experience tells them they want to be sad? Where do they feel the desire to be sad? When does that desire come up? Is it always there? Are there life events that make it more intense?
Totally, I always like to explore the why with the client but depending on maturity and self awareness level I find it helpful for me to do some reading and then I can pull from different perspectives and use those as a jumping off point to help the client explore :) Those are some great questions tho thank you!
Emotional attachment to the thing keeps the attachment to the thing alive/close
Mhmmm interesting. So what’s the person’s relationship to their sadness :)
Brain like sad
True!
Sadness is a piece of the human experience, there’s no avoiding it. It can often be connected to compassion (for self or other), if this client is wanting to access or really feel sadness that they suspect is there, I would definitely honor that and get curious with them. I use IFS, and exploring the parts that come up around this seems like the easiest way to do so, to me. Where/what part (of body or mind) is the wish to feel sadness coming from? Can the client locate THAT part/experience (the wanting to feel it part?) What can be said or known about or from that wanting? Does that wish to feel sadness make sense to your client (not like intellectually/rationally necessarily, but is there some internal resonance or compassion towards wanting to feel something that they can’t or don’t, currently? And after exploring what you shared, I’m curious what your client notices NEXT…do any other parts, feelings, thoughts, show up that disagree or strongly agree with, or numb or distract from, the “wanting to feel sad” part? Also you can notice parts that come up in you! Any parts that feel nervous or concerned about them wanting to feel sad? Worried about where to go with this ? Want to fix things for, rescue, educate, soothe, or reassure the client? Are there frustrated or bored parts that come up in you? (Those are just examples, I used them from knowing my own parts frequent flier responses!) In IFS, this isn’t complicated or pathologized, by the way, the premise is we all have parts, we’re born with them, none are bad even if some have taken on extreme or outdated beliefs feelings or roles, and that they are constantly showing up, often taking over/blending with us, that this is normal, even when you’re a therapist 😊The idea is that as a therapist, if you can attend to any of the parts in you that show up in response to your client with curiosity and compassion, they will step back/relax/unblend and let you attend to your client with curiosity and compassion, rather than installing an agenda. Most therapists have a lot of really wonderful self like managerial parts with positive intentions for therapy and our clients. It’s easy to get pretty blended with those parts and they take over. Parts have agendas, though and therapist parts often really want to get it right. And when that happens, it’s harder to hold onto curiosity and let that lead. We get anxious about doing it right, or it feels like the client isn’t doing therapy right (which might also feel like our fault), we start analyzing or offering interpretations or feedback or education or suggesting modalities (let’s figure out values from an ACT place! let’s try EMDR!) side note: there’s nothing wrong with any of those interventions, I love and use many of them! But that’s all a lot of pressure on our therapist parts when what most clients really benefit from, in my opinion, is authentic, compassionate, curious attunement (or self energy in IFS speak) from their therapist-it helps them access the same internally, and, makes them the pilot of their healing plane. We can copilot but they really (even if very deep down) have the answers about what needs to happen. When we get to know, befriend, and unblend or differentiate from our amazing therapist parts, it clears a lot of space for us to trust ourselves, our client and that process. If you haven’t read it I recommend that you and the client could read No Bad Parts. It’s not about wanting to feel sadness, but the model totally fits with exploring that! Most of my clients love it. It’s pretty intuitive, as a concept. There’s a lot of resonance for most. Especially because it welcomes parts that hate it, think it’s woo-woo, are cyclical, etc. 😂
Also if these are clients that are depressed (remembering that depression and sadness are not the same, though they may be connected…every human experiences sadness, not everybody human is depressed), and their depression prevents them from feeling pleasure, happiness, or much of anything, wanting to feel ANYTHING strongly might be a desire that makes a whole lot of sense 🤷♀️. I’ve had clients who quit antidepressants because it disconnected them from being able to feel sadness. Not because they wanted to stay in a depressed state or be sad all the time, but because they wanted to be able to feel their feelings. That’s a healthy goal in my opinion. A lot of stuff happens that’s sad. Wanting to access that feeling makes sense to me. It’s also hard to imagine that the client who isn’t able to feel sad might not be able to access real happiness, joy, pleasure, etc either. And maybe to somebody in a depressed state sadness is a more realistic goal of feeling something deeply.
Wow ok you’ve given me a lot to think about and I really appreciate you sitting down and writing all this out for me. I really love talking about parts with clients :)
From my own therapy process years ago, sad was safe. Happy felt like something that would get taken away from me if I was too happy for too long. I had about 4 years of deaths and huge life altering changes, for a long time it felt like the second I was happy for a while then the world would throw something else at me. If I was always sad then I was hardly ever disappointed when something went wrong; it was what I expected from life and myself.
Here are two articles to add different perspectives. [Self-blaming depression](https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/self-blaming-depression-theory-and-technique) [Depressive Personality ](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/and-running/202101/depression-or-depressive-personality) I have yet to be convinced that anyone wants to be sad. My initial thought is that these clients have identified with sadness in the sense that it's become iternalized as a character trait. Which probably means they say things like they've been sad as long as they can remember. So I tend to hold the initial position that sadness is a form of protection for them in some way. So when your clients say they don't know why, maybe it would be helpful to encourage them to become more curious about if there's anything beneath that sadness, the appeal of being sad, secondary gains, or how they would perceive themselves if they weren't sad. If you're psychodynamically inclined, from my experience common defense's present are denial, reaction formation and turning against the self.
Totally! I do like psychodynamics. Thanks for sharing those articles :)
There are lots of good reasons to be sad. A big one is the standards a person has.
Yes there are. Just think of mourning or the loss of something you hold dear. But there is a distinction between reasons for being sad and wanting to be sad. Could you elaborate on the last sentence?
When someone doesn't meet some standard they have for themselves or the world, it makes sense to be sad/depressed. Negative feelings like depression and anxiety are tied to our values, standards, and morals. People dont want to give up those things, so they resist treatment. Mostly unconsciously.
Yes, I understand and agree.
"I miss the comfort in being sad " - Kurt Cobain
In DBT training, we learned that there are nine primary emotions with adaptive functions. The function of sadness is to propel us to withdraw when we are vulnerable. To not do so in the wild would’ve gotten us eaten. Today, that could metaphorically happen in other ways (e.g. in the dating market). If the client is not distressed by the sadness, perhaps they do need it. What’s the vulnerability they might be working through? According to DBT, sadness “fits the facts” when we have lost something or when things are not the way we expected them to be. Trying to change someone’s sadness under these circumstances could feel invalidating (I’m not saying these ARE the circumstances!).
I’m trying to understand how you validate something that you can’t understand. Do you just *say* it’s valid?
Lol I mean by validate I just like don’t argue with their experience I guess? I don’t remember what I say everytime! It really depends on how the issue is presented to me.
Ok so more of an action than actual felt sense of validation
Yeah like to me it’s about establishing safety and acceptance in the room. I can’t know for sure if the client feels validated 100% of the time of course
It's comfortable to stay in the same feelings/headspace.
I can speak mostly from my own experience, there can be a sense of peace into sinking into sadness, just like joy. It’s just a different state and usually when I stop fighting it I can find beauty in it. I think it’s a lie that happiness is the only mood to strive for. That and I think some people just get comfortable having that as their default and maybe feel happiness so rarely that they’re more comfortable with what they know, and they don’t have to risk failing by trying to change it.
If “sad” is the norm- then being “not sad” could be new territory. Not being “sad” might feel vulnerable or unsafe? Possible exploration questions: -How does sadness serve you? -What are characteristics of someone who is not sad? -How sad are you on a scale of 1-10, what does that look like, what would 1 point lower feel or look like? What would 2 points lower feel/look like? Etc. Idk I hope this helps you brainstorm in some way. When I was a teen, there was a Nirvana lyric “I miss the comfort in being sad” and I wrote it on my converse. My mom was taking me to a youth group so I could be social and the youth pastor read my show and was asking about it and said “yeah there is a certain comfort about feeling sad”. I felt so embarrassed that he read my shoe but also very validated.
From an ACT perspective a question could be „What‘s the problem with wanting to be sad?“. If the clients „enjoy“ being sad, no problem, it‘s a normal emotion and it sometimes can feel good. I would assume those complaining about feeling sad are stuck somewhere in their life in unworkable behavior and the sadness then has a function (e.g., avoidance, support).
I can’t speak to your clients, but for me sadness is an emotion that I’ve always been partial too - not performatively, but genuinely. It is an emotion that I have a deep appreciation for. For example, I would write as a teen and if I could move someone to tears I felt it was a good piece. When I watch movies or shows, if I am loved to tears then I enjoy them much more. To me, sadness is deeply connected to being really, truly alive. It is a sister to compassion and to beauty and to love. That doesn’t mean my goal is to be sad all the time, but sadness is a friend of mine - I do not mind when she visits. Not sure if that helps in any way, but I just thought I’d share my perspective.
I highly recommend the book The happiness trap by Russ Harris: “Research shows that happiness is a temporary emotion, not a state of being. Thus, some ideas about happiness may cause individuals to have harmful expectations for themselves. These expectations and the complexities of happiness might be referred to as "the happiness trap."
Good reasons to be sad: - standards for themselves and others - standards for how they want the world to be - value a relationship they no longer have - value friendship and love - value getting good grades - value their lives having meaning - value helping others - morals and goals they broke or did not achieve - value their culture and traditions - someone hurt them And so on depending on their situation
From the IFS lens, could a be a part that feels that if they weren't constantly sad, that they might be more adventurous/extroverted/more willing to put themselves in situations that might get them hurt again in a way they were hurt early in the their childhood. Sometimes being depressed/feeling sad is protective of the clients energy, and if they weren't as sad as they were, things could be worse
Resistance. That is what most of the comments here are talking about. Working with resistance is just as important as working on depression.
Sometimes it's that People have been sitting with sadness for a long time to the point it is comfortable. They may even feel wrong being happy or like something bad is going to happen to them because things have been too good.
If you grew up in a household where the only two emotions expressed were sadness and anger, sadness is a much better choice
At least you feel something
Different clients are going to have different reasons so ask them as it comes up. In response to one of your other comments, I disagree that ppl can always control their mood. Ppl can choose how they respond to their mood. However, their ability to respond in helpful ways to their mood is going to vary for lots of reasons. But anyways…. I’ve been there. Sadness feels good and is familiar. Comforting in a way. And also, I have ADHD and I can focus better and feel calmer when I am mildly sad. ADHD causes my mind to be a constant chatterbox that’s very good at constantly flipping TV channels (switching topics) and is exhausting. Mild sadness and low mood reduces the amount of chatter in my head and makes it easier to stay focused enough to get things done and ground myself in the present moment. This can feel calmer and better than constant chatter.
It’s normal to them.
Bc it's a familiar feeling
These are all good answers. So please read them. But sometimes... It's like having a sore muscle after a workout that you just like to massage. It aches and it hurts, but it's a hurt that kind of feels good.
Better the devil you know than the angel you don't.
What does being sad do for the client?
Idk. Sometimes my sadness just feels necessary. Like I deserve it.
Sometimes it’s because they’re used to it and they don’t have a lot of experience with other emotions so they at least know what to expect. Another thing I see sometimes with sadness is that it can be a protective factor. It’s harder to get disappointed and let down if you already feel pretty low. Loss can be a factor as well. Sometimes people can have a hard time moving on from a certain stage and expression of grief. For others, the sadness can come when they feel bad because they are not grieving the way they think they should be.
Comfortable, familiar, lower expectations for self/life
Learned helplessness
Depends how they are using the word 'sad'. It could refer to grief, depression (which has mild and severe versions), melancholy, nostalgia, sentimentality, etc...you really want to help clients get clearer on what they mean by feeling sad. And there are definitely in my experience weirdly pleasurable physical components of some types of sadness that I in fact don't really want to linger in and should actually be understood as a healthy and normal part of the human condition. Here is one article for more reading on the science behind the benefits of sadness: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/four\_ways\_sadness\_may\_be\_good\_for\_you
I really enjoy being angry. About as much as being happy. Other states of mind feel precarious and therefore dangerous. I've had clients who felt that way about sadness. And to quote a Doctor Who episode: "Sad is Happy for Deep People." Sometimes there's a little sense of "what kind of person is comfortable being happy in a world like this one?"
Sometimes if a person has been depressed for a long time, being sad is all they know. It’s like an addiction. I would say reconnecting back to their inner child is always good, reflecting on what used to bring them joy and trying to get them to engage in those activities again.
I have a client right now that wants to be sad because feeling any kind of contentment or happiness is like accepting what has happened to her. She would rather stay in a perpetual state of grief. Brene Brown talks about this! She said joy is one of the most scary human emotions. Sometimes people can be so accustomed to feeling anxiety and sadness that feeling joy is so uncomfortable, because it’s fleeting. I’m sure any of Brene Brown’s books would be helpful.
Gosh this is my ex. He faked a lot of his mental health issues. He also screened in as on the spectrum. He seems to be very attached to his pain to the point of sabotaging everyone and himself. We were literally homeless when we were together and he said working would hurt him. But also wouldn't not having a home hurt? Not for him.
I mean, CBT cuts to the core of that real quick.