Keywords

MDD, depression, work-place, benefits

Abstract

It is illegal for equal-opportunity employers to ask potential hires about history and status of mental health. To allow employers to provide reasonable accommodation for mental and emotional health concerns, voluntary self-disclosure is permitted by the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), so long as it does not affect the decision to hire. However, as it is in the employer’s best interest to hire strong candidates, the erroneous connection between emotional suffering and inherent weakness has greatly contributed to the stigma against those who experience depressive symptoms. Individuals who experience depressive symptoms are colloquially understood to be incapable of identifying and understanding personal emotions, but alexithymia is not a subcomponent of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) (Hoffmann et al., 2016). Depression has ties with low empathy, but empathy in remittent depression remains virtually unexamined by the scientific community. Individuals with depression may often be considered weak, yet no study has supported the notion that MDD debilitates resilience; in fact, depression may enhance it (Wingo et al., 2017). The dynamic nature of MDD and the unstudied benefits of remittent depression are much more complicated than a binary self-disclosure statement. Future research should focus on the impact of remittent depression on creativity, sociality, and psychological resilience.