Beck Depression Inventory

The Beck Depression Inventory is a self-report questionnaire that gives a measurable form to Connell’s depression during his first university counselling session. Its score of 43, which the counsellor identifies as indicating very serious depression, shifts his distress from something he has tried to contain into a condition that requires serious attention and possible treatment.

The Questionnaire and Its Setting

At the university counselling service, Connell fills out a questionnaire while waiting to speak with Yvonne. The form asks him to choose among statements about pessimism, ranging from not being discouraged about the future to feeling that it is hopeless and will only get worse. He finds that more than one statement could plausibly describe him. The most severe option seems to resonate, but he circles the less severe statement numbered 2 because he does not want to alarm the person who will receive the form.

The small physical marks around the questionnaire give the assessment a concrete place in the scene: Connell’s ballpoint pen pierces the paper on the first question, leaving a tiny tear that he later recognizes among the pages Yvonne reviews. The form is not presented as an abstract diagnosis detached from his experience; it is completed by someone already struggling to judge how much of his state he can disclose.

The Score and Its Interpretation

During the session, Yvonne explains that the service assigns a score from zero to three for each item. She contrasts a score of roughly zero to five, which she says someone like herself might receive, with about fifteen or sixteen for a mild depressive episode. Connell’s result is 43. Yvonne describes that score as being in the territory of a very serious depression and asks whether that assessment matches his experience. After rubbing his eye, Connell quietly agrees.

The score also brings into the conversation the inventory’s indications of intense self-negativity and suicidal thoughts. Yvonne says these concerns must be taken seriously. Rather than treating the number as a complete account of Connell, the session uses it to make a difficult discussion possible: the questionnaire gives his distress a form that can be read and discussed, while his response confirms its relevance to how he feels.

The Circumstances Behind the Result

The assessment takes place after Rob Hegarty’s suicide. In January, Connell receives a late-night group message asking whether anyone has seen or heard from Rob; the next day, Rob’s body is recovered from the River Corrib. Connell had not kept up with Rob in college and feels guilty that he did not stay in contact or reply to Rob’s last message, which had been sent years earlier. In the counselling session, he tells Yvonne that he feels responsible for having missed an opportunity to help. She responds that Rob’s death was not Connell’s fault, while acknowledging the pain of his regret.

Connell’s distress has also become physically and socially disruptive. His previously chronic, low-level anxiety has intensified; minor interactions can make his hands tingle, and he has experienced panic attacks involving hyperventilation, chest pain, and difficulty making sense of what he sees and hears. In the waiting room, he finds the form’s most hopeless statement frighteningly apt, but marks a less severe answer. The difference between what he recognizes internally and what he is prepared to record sharpens the significance of the eventual score.

Consequences and Significance

After reviewing the result, Yvonne recommends that Connell see a GP at college to discuss the possibility of medication, while clarifying that she cannot prescribe it herself. The inventory therefore serves as an assessment within a broader counselling encounter, not as a treatment in its own right. Its result gives the service grounds to raise further care and gives Connell a numerical measure of a condition he has struggled to articulate.

The scene places that measure alongside the circumstances that shape his suffering: bereavement, guilt, anxiety, and isolation. Connell lives in scholarship accommodation and sees few people; when Yvonne asks about close relationships, he names Niall and Marianne, who is away on Erasmus. The questionnaire’s score does not resolve these losses or social difficulties, but it makes their seriousness harder to minimize. Its small tear, the answer Connell chooses, and the unexpectedly high total together expose the distance between trying not to alarm someone and the gravity of what he is experiencing.