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The idea that depression is a medical illness also poses some problems however. First, knowing that depression is a set of symptoms doesn’t tell you much about how those symptoms came about or how to get rid of them. Second, when you think of a medical illness, you may tend to think of an illness that is caused entirely by physical malfunctions in your body. In fact, most of the research that has been done shows that physical, behavioral, cognitive (thinking), and environmental factors are all potentially important in causing and maintaining depression. Lack of social support from friends or family, stressful life events, negative thinking, and relationship difficulties have all been shown to be associated with depression.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, when you think of a medical illness, you may often assume that only medical treatments can be helpful. People often say things like, “If my depression is caused by a chemical imbalance, then how could anything but medication help me?” In fact, as we said above, many nonbiological factors may cause or maintain depression.
So if depression is not strictly a medical illness, what is it? This is a little bit like asking, “What is love?”. The difference is that there are no tablets to feel love, whilst there is Prozac to heal your depression. Just like love, depression refers to a complex set of human experiences. This is why many psychologists and researchers think of depression as a biological-psychologicalenvironmental process. In plain English, depression is like a very complex sauce. Comparing depression to a sauce may seem odd, but bear with us. If you follow the recipe for a particular sauce, you can see all of the individual ingredients. However, no single ingredient alone can account for the taste of the whole sauce, and each ingredient supports the others in some way. If you made a change in any ingredient, the whole sauce itself would taste different. Depression works the same way. Each ingredient, including the biological, the behavioral, the cognitive, and the interpersonal, works together. You may strongly believe that only one ingredient contributes to your depression. For example, many people believe that their depression is clearly caused by a chemical imbalance because it feels so innate. Nevertheless, changing what you do will have an impact on this biological process. Just like taking an antidepressant may make it easier to find energy to complete tasks, completing tasks and getting active can effect changes in your brain.
Keep in mind that diagnoses such as “depression” are culturally specific. People at differ-
ent times in history or in different cultures may not experience depression in the same way that Westerners experience it today. Although it is clear that people throughout history have most likely had broken bones, bruises, and upset stomachs, it is less clear whether they experienced their psychological world in the same way that people do today. This points again to the fact that depression is a complex problem, and that you may be living in a society that makes you more prone to depression on a number of levels. It is a relief to know, however, that you can deal with this complex problem through relatively simple means. The approach described in this website may be the one that will work for you.
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