The causes of depression are varied and are no respecter of social class, wealth, sex or age – it can affect almost anybody and sometimes strikes without warning.
Causes of Depression
Although depression does not always respond well to self-help, most depressions can indeed be greatly improved via one of the many therapies that are available to deal with the situation. Why ‘most’ depressions? Well, mainly because depression is considered to be a serious illness that needs handling with great care, sometimes needing medication as well as therapy, sometimes responding well to medication without other help. Clinical depression, which includes Bi-polar disorder (originally Manic Depression) and endogenous depression, is thought to be caused by brain chemistry. Both of these disorders need medication, as does the depression sometimes brought about by brain damage or brain surgery.
With endogenous depression the individual is in a constantly low mood, continually depressed; there is seldom, if ever, any change of emotional state and nothing seems to create a ‘lift’ or, indeed, a drop in mood. Bi-polar disorder, on the other hand, is characterised by swings from lethargic depression to a euphoric state (mania). In the depressive stage, the individual is lethargically depressed and there is little or no urge to do even the basic essentials of caring for self; in the manic phase, the exact opposite applies and there is an excess of energy (sometimes accompanied by prodigious and selfishly-orientated sex-drive) and a euphoric feeling of being able to achieve almost anything. Not unusually, the sufferer, in this phase, will make elaborate and/or outrageous plans for success.
