Welcome to my new blog! This is just the first of many entries to come on the subject of depression and its effective treatment. I intend to regularly draw your attention to the fact that despite the popularity of the notion that depression is only about brain chemistry gone awry, in reality there are many factors contributing to depression's onset and course. Some of these are individual psychological factors, and some are social factors.
I intend to explore the social side of depression in particular, though. Why? Because it receives too little attention for how powerful it is in catalyzing depression. I will address the broad theme that the quality of your relationships with other people can serve to either increase or decrease your vulnerability to depression. I will explore cultural influences, gender issues, and how socialization as a process inevitably contributes risk factors for depression that ongoing life experience can too easily spark into a depressive episode.
The rate of depression is rising. According to the World Health Organization, the international watchdog of health issues around the world, depression is currently the fourth greatest cause of human suffering and disability around the world. That observation alone tells us how serious and pervasive the problem of depression already is. Even worse, however, is the World Health Organization prediction that by the year 2020, depression will have risen to become the second greatest cause of human suffering and disability. This unprecedented rapid growth rate is one piece of strong evidence among many I will document here that biology is less a factor in depression's spread and social forces are the greater factor.
People Can Spread Depression
What people do to each other can too easily become the source of great hurt in our lives and also become an enduring way of thinking, feeling and relating to others. But, we have re-learned something of vital importance that has been too often overlooked in recent years: Just as people can be a source of pain, they can also be a source of comfort and happiness and a way out of pain. In light of new research, being the strong, self-sufficient “go it alone” type no longer seems the most effective route to personal fulfillment. Instead, science is confirming what we have probably always known in our hearts: We are built to be in positive, meaningful relationships with others in order to feel good. Yet, today, our relationships are damaged and suffering in unprecedented ways. As relationships face more challenges, whether in love, family, business, or friendship, depression is on the rise. Depression spreads, in part, through troubled relationships and, in this sense, is socially contagious. You can’t catch depression in the same way you catch a cold, but the latest research in neuroscience, social psychology, epidemiology, and genetics provides overwhelming support that moods spread through social conditions.
Our social lives directly shape our brain chemistry and powerfully affect the way we think and feel. With modern scanning technologies, we now have evidence that our brains change with positive life experiences. In fact, brains can change as much with social circumstances as with medication. Drugs may address some of depression’s symptoms, but they cannot change the social factors that cause and perpetuate it. In future blogs, I will identify specific social factors that affect depression's onset, as well as what steps people can take to empower themselves to reduce their vulnerability.
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