Our next case study concerns a young man named M. who presented at his family physician’s office complaining of symptoms consistent with a major depressive episode. The physician referred him to a psychiatrist, Dr. N., who prescribed Zoloft and implemented a biweekly course of psychotherapy. Among other things, Dr. N. asked M. to keep a log of his mood and activities. Over two weeks, M. produced a spreadsheet in which he made hourly entries (recording his mood ranked on a scale from one to ten) and providing a one or two word description of what he was doing at the time. So, for example, on his first Tuesday, M. entered:
7:00 a.m. – 2-breakfast
8:00 a.m. – 1-shave
9:00 a.m. – 2-shower
10:00 a.m. – 2-TV
11:00 a.m. – 3-crossword
12:00 p.m. – 4-groceries
1:00 p.m. – 3-sandwich
2:00 p.m. – 3-nap
3:00 p.m. – 2-stare out window
4:00 p.m. – 1-weep
5:00 p.m. – 2-TV
6:00 p.m. – 3-soup
7:00 p.m. – 2-stare at ceiling
8:00 p.m. – 4-TV
9:00 p.m. – 5-popcorn
10:00 p.m. – 5-porn
11:00 p.m. – 4-floss
From the records, Dr. N. produced a line graph tracking time on the x-axis and mood on the y-axis.
It should be noted that Dr. N. was a serious day trader. Each hour, he met with a patient for a fifty minute session, then spent ten minutes tracking his portfolio. It was not uncommon for Dr. N. to receive an automated alert on his cell phone and interrupt his therapy session to place a buy or sell order.
On the day M. delivered his first mood graph, Dr. N. laid it on his desk beside his computer monitor. At the end of the day, when Dr. N. was reviewing the markets, he noted a similarity between the shape of the mood graph and the shape of the graph showing the day’s performance for the Toronto Stock Exchange. Dr. N. thought nothing of the similarity, but at their next session, he again noted a correspondence between M.’s mood graph and the indicators for the TSX.
“You do any trading?” Dr. N. asked.
“Huh?” M. had been slumped in his chair and was gazing at the floor.
“The markets? Do you play the stock market?”
“I don’t know shit about the stock market.”
Nevertheless, M.’s Zoloft had kicked in during the preceding week and the financial and retail sectors reported an unexpected jump in share prices. Although he doubted the existence of a relationship, Dr. N. was curious and, in the spirit of science, decided to conduct an experiment. He prescribed a mild dose of Adderall—an amphetamine—and by the next session with M., his tech shares were up by more than ten percent and one of the companies had done so well that its Board of Directors decided to pay an extra dividend. Dr. N. dumped his tech stock and, part way through the week, phoned M. and told him to stop taking Adderall. The entire sector reported a major slump. Dr. N. bought back twice as many shares as he had sold, then phoned M. and told him to start in with the Adderall again. Within a couple days, share prices had returned to normal. After the close of trading the next day, they were up by another twenty-five percent. Dr. N. sold all his soup stock and used the proceeds to buy a new Porsche.
Dr. N. thought it best not to promote major shifts in the market, so he prescribed a benzodiazepine to smooth over some of the rough edges. Whenever the markets performed well, Dr. N. liquidated a portion of his portfolio, then instructed M. to cut back one of his meds. When M. went off Zoloft, there was a slump in the mining sector and that presented a huge opportunity. Another time, when M. went off Buspar, the bottom fell out of utilities for a week before he responded to the new prescription—Abilify.
Dr. N. was not wholly self-interested in all of this. He recognized that his primary duty was to his patient. It was great that he was able to buy a cottage in Muskoka, a winter home in the Bahamas, and a boob job for his wife, but M. was well now and it would be unethical to prolong his use of meds. Dr. N. decided to limit his investment strategy to “softer” manipulations. There was nothing wrong with the occasional morning phone call from a concerned mental health care provider. “So how’s your day shaping up? Good, you say? Well, then, excuse me a minute while I place this sell order.” In this way, Dr. N. gradually weaned himself of his dependency on M.
Things would have gone well for M. except for the fact that there was a tiny leak from Dr. N’s office. Word got out about M.’s market-influencing moods. Dr. N. never discovered the source of the leak. It could have been his receptionist, or his secretary, or the cleaning staff. It was impossible to say. And Dr. N. didn’t want to place himself in the embarrassing position of accusing an innocent employee.
Whatever the source of the leak, M. was off his meds not three weeks before a Wall Street investment banker came knocking at his door, professing great concern for his happiness. Although M. treated the man with suspicion, there’s only so much munificence a man can resist. First came the gifts—a giant 3D TV screen, a fancy car, a boob job for his wife. Then came the trips—a resort in Cancun, penthouse in Vegas, suite in the Vatican. M. lived like a rock star. If M. wanted it, the banker ordered him food at three in the morning. Or hookers. Four at a time. Celine Dion even sang to him in a private booth. The markets soared and the banker grew rich.
And then one morning the banker awoke and reviewed the markets abroad as he drank his coffee. In Tokyo, and again in Berlin and London, he saw all the signs of a global economic collapse sweeping like a wave from east to west and swallowing everything in its path. He rushed to M.’s hotel where he found a call girl snoring on the king-sized bed. He shook her and demanded to know where M. had gone. She pointed to the balcony where M. stood bowed and weeping.
“What’s wrong?” the banker asked.
M. shrugged.
“You need to snap out of it.” The banker tried to suppress the hint of panic in his voice.
M. said: “I feel so empty.”
“Empty? That’s absurd. You’ve got everything you could ever hope for. Cars. Jets. Women. Celine Dion.”
“Yeah. Whatever.”
“Come on. Give me a smile.”
“Fuck off.”
M. punched the banker in the face. The banker staunched the blood with a silk handkerchief. While he held his head back, M. kicked him in the stomach and pushed him over the railing. The banker fell thirty floors and struck the pavement in the space between two parked cars, a Lamborghini and a Bentley. M. smiled at the rag-doll body broken below. It was time to go home to his wife.
You might think that the markets recovered after that. They didn’t. At least not with a quick rebound. As anyone with a shred of common sense will tell you, it takes a long time to recover from a depression.