It is popular these days to explain depression as a medical problem caused by chemistry: an imbalance of serotonin and other neurotransmitters. Many mental health care providers favor this explanation of depression's causes, supposedly because it destigmatizes the illness and shifts blame away from the patient.

Bereaved people carry a double burden: the pain of loss, and the pain and awkwardness of living in sadness among people who almost invariably would prefer not to hear about it. Bereaved people are acutely sensitive to others’ anxiety and avoidance and discomfort around their suffering. Many choose to remain silent rather than to disturb others.

In the eponymous fairytale, Sleeping Beauty's parents throw a joyous party to celebrate her long-awaited birth. They only have twelve place settings, so they invite twelve of the kingdom's thirteen wise women. The thirteenth wise woman, who is ill-tempered and lives in a remote corner of the kingdom, is not invited to the party. The way that the parents treated the thirteenth sister is the way many of us treat sadness and other negative emotions.

Mainstream American culture has a real thing for happiness. We believe happiness to be the most important goal of human life. We also believe that people (at least those who are strong, self-reliant, hard-working, and virtuous enough) can achieve happiness if they pursue it. Unfortunately, our beliefs in the importance and achievability of happiness result in dysfunctional beliefs about the meaning of unhappiness.