This video was taped last summer, but its message is evergreen.There is a reason why most psych wards integrate occupational therapy (which I’ve come to call “recess”) into their programs. Believe it or not, painting that ugly bird house takes your mind off your agony, if only for a few minutes until the patient next to you steals your paint, and it reminds you of how your evil cousin stole everything from underneath you when her dad and your dad died in combat in Vietnam, after they earned their purple hearts. And then you become crazy all over again.No, but seriously, what might seem a very tedious activity, like knitting, or scrapbooking–something that doesn’t require you to use Thomas Aquinas’s theory of original sin–can be very helpful in managing depression because it forces your thoughts outside yourself.I took my laptop down to Lothian, Maryland to interview my guardian angel number two, Fr. Joe Girzone, because he knows this process well. Here he is to describe it himself.