A report on marriage and depression is making media waves with flashy titles like “New Depression Rx: Get Married” (Psych Central Newsroom version). Basically, a study showed that people in lower their scores on a depression scale if they got married. Although it was presented somewhat as a surprise, I think if you really break down that idea it is one of the biggest “no duh” type findings I have seen get this much attention in 2007.

If people are depressed and then find a new relationship partner that can be supprotive and unconditionally loving, or take an established relationship to the next level of commitment, it would obviously be expected that some depression would be reduced, at least temporarily. And if I want to be really picky, I could argue that many of these people would have lessened their depression and then found soemone to marry. There is no way to show that the marriage itself reduced the depression.

To me, the real story is how the findings are being presented to the public. Those types of headlines are extremely misleading, and I truly hope no one that is feeling depressed rushes into a relationship as a cure. It can work some magic for a brief period of time and only in the rarest circumstances would it help resolve core issues that produce depression. I can think of few worse reasons to get married than to try and end legitimate clinical depression.

Comments

This post currently has 5 comments. You can read the comments or leave your own thoughts on our new comments page.

Trackbacks

No trackbacks yet to this post.

    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 5 Jun 2007
    Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.