Andy was 29 years old when he came to see me. He was depressed, defiant, and completely uncooperative. He lived at home with his parents—whom he was driving crazy with his complaints about how they didn’t understand him, how they didn’t prepare him for the real world, and how they expected too much of him. He refused to do anything to help himself. Our sessions together were an exercise in frustration for both of us—he felt depressed no matter what we did, and I felt frustrated that he rejected everything that I said. After a couple of months, I said to him, “You know, Andy, you seem to take the position that you will do nothing to help yourself: you won’t take medication, you won’t do any self-help homework, and you just complain. How do you think I’m going to be able to help you?”
He responded immediately. “You can’t.”
“Well, I guess the only alternative is to get used to being depressed.”
He looked at me, confused and a little annoyed. “What are you saying?”
“Well, you are telling me that it’s hopeless and you won’t do anything to change, so maybe it is hopeless.”
He told me right then that he was going to quit therapy.
He did quit. But he called me back two weeks later and said, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I need to do something to help myself.”
I said, “On the depression inventory you took you scored a 45. That’s very high. I’m not guaranteeing anything, but I’ll make a bet with you. I’ll bet that we can reduce your depression by 50 percent in 12 weeks if you do everything I tell you to do. Here’s the bet: if your depression drops to a score of 22 or below, you have to buy me two tickets to a Yankees game.”
“Okay, it’s a deal,” Andy said. “But what do I get if my depression doesn’t fall to 22?"
I chuckled a little with him. “I wouldn’t be concerned. I intend to win.”
We worked at changing his relationship with his parents. I suggested that he apologize to them for complaining and blaming them for everything and ask them for ideas about how he could be helpful at home. We also worked on setting goals every day, challenging his self-critical thinking, and doing whatever we could to hook him to being more active and rewarding to other people. He got a part-time job. When the 12 weeks were over, Andy’s depression score had dropped to 14. He got me the tickets.
I said, “Want to see the Yankees with me?”
So the two of us went to the ball game.
Years later I was walking down the sidewalk in New York and he came up to me. He was smiling, he looked absolutely terrific, and he said, “You saved my life.” I asked him what he was doing and he told me he was working in a day-care center. He was really a kind, loving guy who had gotten trapped in his depression. But together we had gotten him to act against his hopelessness.
Incidentally, I can’t remember if the Yankees won. But both of us won the bet.
Excerpted from Beat the Blues Before They Beat You by Robert L. Leahy, Ph.D. Copyright © 2011 (Hay House).
Robert L. Leahy, Ph.D., is recognized worldwide as one of the most respected writers and speakers on cognitive therapy.
