Brains.

Read some interesting reasearch on the brain recently. Did you know there are 7 or 8 different types of depression and anxiety ? Let's take a quiz and find out which type you are.
Okay, maybe later, but neuroscientist and psychiatrist Daniel Amen has moved the field of psychiatry and brain research ahead several notches by noticing that psychiatry is the only field of medicine where so little is known about the organ being treated. He has really thrown himself into looking at the physical brain with some new imaging, called SPECT imaging ( Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography ). I had forgotten that the brain is approximately a soft custard /tofu consistancy inside a hard unbendable shell. Dr. Amen says he finds head injuries to be so common ... when he interviews patients with depression and/or anxiety, he ends up asking about head injuries several different ways during the course of the interview before people remember that they had one earlier in life. ( note : I was hit by a car at age 3 and broke my collarbone ... I can surmise that my head took impact as well. ).
Anyway, he can see on all the imaging the differences in depressed brains, anxious brains, grouchy brains, sociopath brains, addicted brains, brains who have let their laundry pile up to Pike's Peak etc ... and makes some good treatment recommendations for the various types. His book is called Healing Depression and Anxiety and provides an quick assessment to determine what "type" of anxiety or depression you might have. There is a good deal of information on his website as well.
So, for those of us still fighting off thoughts that Depression is a character flaw, perhaps to be addressed by more time with God and in the Word, as any good Christian should, ... check out what Dr. Amen has great things to say about the ACTUAL structural changes in a brain. And how to help.
Are you walking to the bathroom after you are done reading this ? Strap on your helmet.