The most popular psychological theory about depression these days is the cognitive-behavioral model, which views depression as distorting our perception of reality, making our thoughts abnormally negative. This model, the basis for cognitive-behavioral therapy, is contradicted by another theory that has a growing amount of clinical evidence behind it: the depressive realism hypothesis. This theory argues that depressed people aren’t depressed because they distort reality; they’re depressed because they see reality more clearly than other people do.

S. Nassir Ghaemi, A first-rate madness: uncovering the links between leadership and mental illness, New York, NY, 2012, p. 21