What Is Depression?

Some people cannot feel happy, not even on sunny days surrounded by loving family and friends. Those people will have difficulty contributing to the family. They cannot perform their half of a satisfying long-term relationship. They are not content living single, either. Despite access to the good things in life, they cannot feel content or happy. They cannot talk themselves out of it. Such depression can begin in childhood. Some depressed people have not learned how to be grateful or how to forgive people who have hurt them. Their unhappiness can be countered with “positive thinking” or cognitive behavioural training (CBT) or the acceptance of religious ceremonies of forgiveness and absolution. When they learn a new way of viewing reality that can be applied to their frustrations and disappointments and anger or hurt, gradually (or perhaps suddenly) they become happier and more content. Some depressed people have poor nutrition, too little exercise, or some other physical need. Their outlook on life can be changed with better nutrition, exercise, nutritional supplements, purer water, quitting smoking, or some other physical change.

Other depressed people are unable to change their feelings. No matter how hard they try with spiritual, psychological, nutritional, or other therapies they remain anxious, hurt, angry, jealous, disappointed, frustrated, and sad. Some days may be better than others, but overall the world is never sunny enough for long enough. They no longer trust the people who have told them to do this, that, or the other thing to feel better. Such depression may be mild, moderate, or suicidal.

Guy Bérard, a French otolaryngologist, discovered the audio deficits characteristic of clinical depression. They usually, but not always, occur in the left ear. Points of hyperacusis show on the audiograms of depressed people as “peaks” at 1 and 8 kiloHertz for mild depression, at 1.5 and 8 kiloHertz for moderate depression, and at 2 and 8 kiloHertz for suicidal depression. Between those points of hyperacusis, a trough indicates relatively poorer hearing of the frequencies between the peaks. Music therapy usually flattens the peaks and raises the trough so that all frequencies are perceived more uniformly. The stream of sound energy conveyed to the inner ear (vestibular canals and cochlea) as well as directly from the stapedius muscle into the vagus network will be distributed with better balance among the frequencies from the hearing spectrum. The brain and nerve networks use that energy to integrate not only the cerebral hemispheres but the function of the organs and all the muscles in the body.

An audiogram must be made to determine whether the “depression curve” is in the left ear or in the right ear. Listening therapy should be focused, first, on the ear with that depression curve. Focused Listening with the right ear should follow left-ear treatment to bring the corrected left ear into synchronization with the right ear.