STEELE'S DEPRESSION INVENTORY (for adults)

"Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18).

In the first of my "Getting a Life" series I promised I would write later about the importance of measuring gratitude on my depression inventory. Typically, there are 21 symptom-attitude categories that are measured in a depression inventory: 1) mood; 2) pessimism; 3) sense of failure; 4) lack of satisfaction; 5) guilty feeling; 6) sense of punishment; 7) self-dislike; 8) self accusations; 9) suicidal wishes; 10) crying spells; 11) irritability; 12) social withdrawal; 13) indecisiveness; 14)distortion of body image; 15) work inhibition; 16) sleep disturbance; 17) fatigability; 18) loss of appetite; 19) weight loss; 20) somatic preoccupation; and 21) loss of libido (Beck/Beamesderfer Depression Inventory).

Though I do not have a great deal of research to back me up, I do believe that gratitude assessment should be included as a separate category in the depression inventory because gratitude is a characteristic of a psychologically healthy human adult. It is probably more important to measure gratitude as an independent category than loss of libido since there is a great amount of variation of libido among both men and women and the presence of gratitude is expected in every case of a psychologically healthy human adult. A lack of gratitude may indicate something other than depression, but it is certainly symptomatic of it.

I found a couple of interesting articles that tend to support my contention. One is an abstract found on the National Association of School Psychologists site, http://www.naspondine.org/publications/spf/issue2_1frohabstract.aspx The abstract of some research done on elementary students said that the daily counting of blessings for a two-week period of time resulted in improved school satisfaction as well as improved social and emotional functioning. This was true at retest 3 weeks later.

Another is found at http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/064/gratitude.html One of the gratitude factors discussed in this article is the impact gratitude has on physical health. The person with gratitude will live longer and be healthier in the process than those with low levels of gratitude. Gratitude is more important to one's health than the nutritional value of the food one eats! A prayer of thanksgiving for a crust of bread makes it more nutritious than a banquet eaten without prayer.

I believe it is essential to assess gratitude as an independent category by asking questions that deal with the frequency of the feelings of thanksgiving and the perception of the motive behind the good things that happen. The answers to these support the depression inventory in the indication of the presence of depression and the degree of depression.

In any case, gratitude is an essential component of a healthy life!

Grace&Peace,
Tom