Why Do People Become Depressed?

By Wendy Ittensohn  |   Submitted On November 11, 2014

Entire medical libraries have been filled with in-depth analyses of why depression exists.

So, in a brief article of this nature it's unlikely that we are going to be throwing any new light on the subject!

Yet many experts believe that depression is much more widespread than we currently believe. One main reason for that is that there is a specific definition of clinical depression which may not cover many transient attacks of milder depression that many of us may simply dismiss as "an attack of the blues."

What causes some depression?

Trying to identify the causes of these attacks of melancholia and depression is a major challenge for people in the medical and social services. In some cases, the causes can be attributed to direct bio-physical problems such as chemical imbalances in the brain. Some of those can be successfully addressed with medication.

In other instances, attacks of depression may be due to the psychological well-being or otherwise of an individual and these can be particularly difficult to identify and remedy. The problem here is that there are a large number of causes that may differ depending upon somebody's age, sex, physical health, cultural background and so on.

To make matters worse, false diagnoses are a significant risk because people's perception of why they are depressed is not necessarily always a true identification of the real cause.

Low self-esteem - a major factor

Underpinning many cases of non-clinical depression is often a sense for the person concerned that they are of no particular value to the society surrounding them. Low self-esteem can arise in situations where you feel you cannot materially affect the environment around you and therefore are not valued by it.

This can be further exacerbated by feelings of personal failure. Where individuals have tried numerous times to meet whatever the success criteria for themselves and their societies are, butt have failed, an expectation of future failure can become embedded in them and that in turn leads to further degradation of their self-esteem.

This can not only be a problem for individuals but also social groupings. For example, high depression and suicide rates are an acknowledged problem in the First Nations communities due, in part, to a lack of self-esteem both at individual and at community level.

What can be done?

In the past, much transitory depression of this nature was often treated with the simple invocation to "pull yourself together."

However, in the downward spiral of low self-esteem, failure and social marginalisation, many individuals need help to put things into perspective and to start to recognise their own worth and value.

For example,  youth leadership development and training may have a number of objectives but one of them is to identify every individual's unique talents and to develop those as an aid to increasing self-confidence.

It can also be very important for individuals suffering from these problems to understand that at least to some extent, self-doubt and attacks of low self-esteem are part and parcel of the common human experience. Somebody suffering from depression can often believe that they and they alone are experiencing some of the feelings involved whereas, in fact, a significant percentage of humanity goes through these syndromes at one time or another.

What is critically important here is to break the self-fuelling cycle of depression, introspection on the depression and that reflection leading in turn to further and deeper attacks of yet more depression.

Through things such as leadership programmes, counselling and occasionally psychiatric help, depression can be kept in check and seen in perspective.

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