The Mind Explains It All

One afternoon in my psychiatric practice, I saw two patients suffering from depression in back-to-back sessions.

Each had classic symptoms, including what is called diurnal variation of mood: depressed patients typically feel worse in the morning and get better toward evening. The pattern is believed to be caused by the daily fluctuations of hormones and neurotransmitters.

This theory was not, however, how my patients understood their symptoms. The first patient explained that he felt bad during the day because of work pressures, and he improved in the evening because he was alone and could relax. The second patient, a musician, said her solitary days made her depressed; it was only when she arrived at work in the evenings and was around people that she felt like herself.

I suspect that the two patients’ reasoning reflects a phenomenon that crops up constantly in therapy: the post hoc “explanation” of feelings and behaviors. Patients attribute their symptoms to specific life events — an approach that appears to make sense.

But this drive to come up with the causes of events is hardly limited to therapy patients. Neurophysiologists discovered the same phenomenon in a radically different context. While mapping the brain, they were amazed to find that when the area responsible for an emotion was electronically stimulated, subjects experienced the mechanically induced feeling, then instantly came up with reasons for their responses. NY Times