My therapist doesn’t seem to believe in SAD. I start feeling the shorter days some years by the middle of August (mostly dread and feeling sad for no particular reason) and in a bad year I’m sometimes suicidal by November, and it keeps getting worse through February. Winter scares me. I’ve been using a light box since before starting with this therapist, but I’m embarassed to mention it to her because if I bring up SAD she disputes it, or sometimes reminds me that “personality disorders are not seasonal” (ok, I have personality disorders too, and summer isn’t necessarily perfect, but it’s a lot better than winter).

Even though I complain about my therapist, and disagree with her about some things, she’s generally really good, and has helped me a lot. Do you have any ideas how to convince her that this is real to me?

@ Rapunzel,
Well, I can’t speak to your particular diagnosis, but after quite a bit of research and reading to prepare for the SAD book. I am convinced that some people do need the extra boost from bright sun. I’m not necessarily plugging our book (well I guess I am) but it is a very comprehensive book–you might want to ask your therapist to read some of the chapters. You can buy it used on Amazon quite reasonably. In addition to lots of information there are guidelines for light therapy. Perhaps you need to spend more time under lights or you’re not using them at the right time.

Thanks. I found a lot of useful information when I got my light box, from the manufacturer. Like an assessment that said that I had a delayed circadian rhythm disorder and that I needed to use light in the morning. It works, when I use it consistently (I don’t always).

I also have read Daniel Kripke’s web-books, and those have been informative too. To convince my therapist, she will require peer-reviewed research articles.

I looked up your book on Amazon, and I might get it. I just need to get past the “for Dummies” part of the title.

For your therapist, if you go to our website, click on SAD for Dummies, then on the page will be a place to click for background literature. She will find a bibliography, many of the sources were from peer reviewed journals. Good Luck!

Thanks. I found the bibliography. That was what I have been looking for.

Looking through the preview of your book on Amazon, there does seem to be a lot of information there beyond what I have read from other sources, and also some that backs up what I already read or knew intuitively.

Do you know if any research studies have looked at whether people who move to locations further from the equator are more at risk in comparison to people who always lived at those latitudes? I have noticed a pattern based on where I have lived. As a child we lived in locations in southern parts of the U.S. My first severe depression symptoms occurred when we moved to Europe, and were worst in winter. I was better after moving back to Texas and New Mexico, and had some bad winters in northern Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. Wondering if the changes in location have had something to do with it, or if it would have been the same simply staying in a northern climate. And whether my children are at risk. I’m also working on a literature review on why counselors should consider biological factors involved in mental health, but finding the topic to be too broad for a paper. It needs to be a book. I always wanted to write books, anyway, but thought it made sense to start smaller.

There have been some studies about people who relocate. Those that move from close to the equator north tend to get SAD (noticed in college students). There is less evidence of people moving south of the equator getting SAD (might be in part because of lack of participants). Some interesting research looks at people from Iceland (where it gets really dark in the winter) seem to have an immunity to SAD, but when they move to Canada, they sometimes lose that immunity. I find the relationship between circadian rhythm and mood quite interesting! Good luck with your research and writing.

Words from experience

I always put a big sticker on my new calendar — at mid-August — to remind me it’s time to start using the lights and fire up the dawn simulator.

Best $25 tool: a very basic dawn simulator, here; add a low-wattage halogen floodlight in a lamp aimed at the bedroom ceiling.

http://www.humboldt1.com/~zerdo/index.htm

Also — the converse of using bright (actually blue-green) light is to _avoid_ the same wavelength a few hours before you go to sleep at night:
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2007/03/12/light-and-dark/

Doing that, I found, really helped the winter depression greatly — being able to sleep through the night _and_ wake up to the dawn simulator _and_ use the bright/bluegreen lights all work together.

If I could only stop the arthritis from waking me up at 4am, which is new …. well, the ibuprofen’s finally starting to work, and (because the computer screen has a nice dark yellow Rosco filter over it so it hasn’t wiped out my nighttime melatonin level) I _will_ be able to get back to sleep now….

Seriously, for those who feel the first tinge of melancholy slipping up on them as the days get shorter — don’t wait! Deal with winter depression, the lighting tools are really powerful. Deal with it before Daylight Saving Time slams you, as it may do.

It’s far, far easier to stay out of the deep dark pit than to clamber back up out of it sometime in December or January if you let yourself slip into it. Trust me on this.