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Notes on counselling

Depression — a consciousness world-view

Dr. Soumitra Basu

Abstract
Depression can be a mood, a symptom or a disease. A consciousness world-view examines depression at
various planes of consciousness. Though depression arises on the vital plane, its effects are discernible
through its effects on other planes and through their combinations. An access to the Praannic SSakti in the
inner being, a replacement of the ego by a greater principle and an identity with the Bliss-principle are
ways to conquer depression.

Depression is a term that is simultaneously hill-station. Ray wanted to show how character
ubiquitous and ambiguous. It can signify and Nature were interrelated in mood:
different things in different cultures or different
poises in the same culture. It might have “The idea was to have the film starting with
different meanings, nuances and expressions sunlight. Then clouds coming, then mist rising,
at different points of an individual’s life. and then mist disappearing, the cloud disappearing,
and then the sun shining on the snow-peaks. There
In the therapeutic setting, what needs to be is an independent progression to Nature itself, and
discerned is whether depression refers to a the story reflects this (1).”
mood or whether it is a symptom of some
disease or whether it is itself an independent It is significant that the film ends when the
disease with major ramifications in the bio- oscillations of mood subside, coinciding with
psycho-social sphere. the clearing of mist when all misunderstanding
gets solved.
Depression as mood
Ray’s analogy was down to earth. Many a
Depression can signify normal mood fluc- time, clients describe their depressive affect
tuations. In his 1962 film, Kanchenjungha, using the symbolism of the cloud. Many a time
Satyajit Ray, one of India’s most prolific this scribe was told by clients that, like dark
filmmakers, showed with brilliance how clouds looming on the horizon, depressive
moods fluctuated with climatic changes in a phases would invade their lives cutting off the

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