MENTAL HEALTH Workplace culture often deters seeking help for depression

One in five U.S. workers suffers from depression in a given year.
ORLANDO SENTINEL
Lynn Williams spent five years as a self-described workaholic manager for a group of Volusia County, Fla., medical offices. Late in 1996, she started to experience occasional lapses in concentration and memory.
It got worse. She developed breathing problems, which she attributed to her asthma. But specialists told her she was wrong. They suspected stress and suggested she talk to a mental-health therapist.
She balked. She insisted her problems were physical, not psychological. "The doctor said, 'You can die from not breathing for psychological reasons just as well as not breathing for physical reasons.' That made sense to me."
As it turned out, Williams was clinically depressed. It took years of therapy and fine-tuning the type and dosage of antidepressant drugs before she was stabilized. Now 46, the Holly Hill, Fla., mother of three grown children is a full-time college student, pursuing dual degrees in health-service administration and psychology.
"I want to get back into work," she said. Looking back, she thinks seeking counseling earlier might have prevented the terrible times she experienced. "When you're swallowed up by depression, you can't do anything. You can't be productive. No way."
Scope of problem
Williams' experience is not an isolated one. About one in five U.S. workers suffers from depression in any given year, and the annual cost to employers in terms of absenteeism, loss of productivity and treatment has been estimated at $60 billion or more.
It's an illness that has been around a long time. Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill struggled with it their entire working careers. Lincoln called it "the hypo." Churchill called it "the black dog."
More than 19 million American adults suffer from depression annually, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, and "no job category or professional level is immune."
But although treatment for depression is successful in more than 80 percent of cases, most people who suffer from depression do not seek help for it.
"There is so much stigma attached to depression, with people thinking they'll be judged for seeking treatment," said David Baker, vice president of the Mental Health Association of Central Florida and a practicing psychotherapist. "The reality is that people who seek treatment for depression lead more successful lives and will be more of a benefit to the organization."
The work culture
Fawn Fitter, co-author of the recently published book "Working in the Dark: Keeping Your Job While Dealing With Depression" (Hazelden, $16, paperback), said there is increasing public awareness that depression is a treatable illness. Nevertheless, "there is still a pervasive attitude that workers with depression are lazy, incompetent, dangerous, or just making it up to have an excuse to slack. People who believe this wouldn't dream of saying this about someone undergoing chemotherapy."
Fitter, Baker and other experts say although the solution starts with employees' recognizing symptoms of depression and seeking help, too often the culture at work discourages or even prohibits such action.
"This is a difficult time to be a depressed person in the work force," said Fitter, who missed several months of work herself in the mid-1990s when she underwent treatment for depression. "The economy is bad, and companies are looking for excuses to cut back their work force."
But there are economic benefits for companies that are proactive in identifying employees who need treatment for depression and getting help for them.
A joint study in 2000 by the Harvard Medical School and the Analysis Group/Economics found that inaction actually costs companies more, because depressed workers who go untreated are more likely to miss work and to be unproductive when they're on the job.
Counseling program
One increasingly popular tool for dealing with the problem is the Employee Assistance Program, which offers counseling services to employees. More than two-thirds of companies surveyed recently by the Society for Human Resource Management, and more than 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies, now have them.
Such programs, often referred to as EAPs, "chip away at the stigma" of depression, said Susan Phelps, an EAP representative for Horizon Behavioral Services in Winter Park, Fla., and president of the 70-member Employee Assistance Professional Association of Central Florida.