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Why does helping others help make depressed people happier?

depression

mental health

psychology

understand

tynamite

Because it makes them feel that they are a contribution to life, and therefore valued.

Update

This answer comes from my brother who knows psychology and is a hypnotist. He is the sort of person who should join Quora to help you lot, but doesn't want to. He says he answered this without having to think about it,

Depression is all about control, When people are stuck in the same job for years and they're sick of it, and can't change their job, they become depressed. Depression is about being stuck in the same situation and not being able to get out of them - being stuck in the same situations. That's what makes people depressed. Now depressed people feel better when they help someone for two reasons

It distracts them from the problems that are happening in their own life [when they revel in someone else's happiness].

When they help people, they feel that they have control, so as well as having control, they possibly can feel that they have the control to solve their own problems as well and take control of their lives as well.

This is the same reason why anorexic people become anorexic. You know why anorexic people become anorexic? It's because they don't have any control in their life, and the one thing that we always do that we can control is eating. So because they can't control anything else in their life, that's what they choose.