This site is a compendium of science-based, positive psychological wisdom. The focus isn’t on pathology or mental illness. Instead, the pages on this site center around particular skills of well-being, presenting theories and tips for their cultivation.
But this page is different. It addresses well-being from an angle of absence: Depression.
On this page, we will take a broad look at Depression. We’ll learn what it is, why it is so common, how it is treated, how it is connected to a sense of meaning in life, and what one can do to address and prevent depression.
Find Immediate Support
This site is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, treatment, medical treatment, psychotherapy, counseling, or mental health services. If you or someone you know is in crisis or having suicidal or self-harming thoughts, then play it safe:
- Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 (TALK)
- Find a nearby hotline in the U.S. or Worldwide
- See this list for resources within the U.S.
- Visit this helpful list of international resources.
It really does not hurt to call, even if you aren’t sure. There are people out there that want to help.
*Use of this site may be an antidote to the modern onslaught of depression-inducing content.
Assess Your Factors of Well-Being
Learn where you can grow.
Use the most comprehensive psychological assessment center on the web, measuring over 50 factors and hundreds of subfactors.
What Is Depression?
Depression is a mental illness characterized by persistent sadness and a lack of interest or pleasure in previously rewarding or enjoyable activities Depression is not the same as sadness, anxiety, or grieving. If you are dealing with Grief or Loss check out the section on that subject for methods on healthy grieving.
Depression can last from weeks to years. Its causes can be physiological—like a thyroid problem, brain tumor, or vitamin deficiency—but it is most often caused by complex combinations of environmental, biological, and psychological factors.
The symptoms of depression can take many forms:
- difficulty focusing
- lack of interest in things
- excessive sleeping
- fatigue
- lowered appetite
- weight loss or gain
- feelings of shame or guilt
- thoughts of suicide
And depression often comes with a variety of vicious cycles that reinforce the depression’s staying power.
“I know I’m depressed. People won’t / don’t like that, so I’ll continue isolating myself and harboring feelings of worthlessness.” – Yikes!
Depression is Common
About 5% of adults worldwide suffer from depression, and in the United States that number is especially high.
In 2020, 9 percent of Americans aged 12 or older experienced a past-year major depressive episode. About 16.6 percent of people experience depression at some point in their lives. That’s one in six!
Despite how common depression may be, people with depression tend to go without diagnosis or help, and they may feel shame about their own depression, enforcing those vicious cycles.
There is some amount of hope for every case, and some people’s depression, because of their predisposition, is easier or more challenging to address. Even the most severe cases are highly treatable. Considering depression’s vicious cycles, attending to it early and prevention are the most reliable.
How Depression Is Treated
Commonly, a combination of psychotherapy and medication is used to treat depression.
Therapy
There are many therapeutic approaches to depression out there. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, for one, has been shown to be effective (Furlong 2002), both alone and in combination with drug therapy.
Most forms of therapy can be thought of as scaffolding improvement in a patient’s own thoughts and behaviors. For example, therapy for depression is likely to involve restructuring thought habits, which is what this website aims to do, especially with the various “Enablers of Well-Being.” By learning different ways of thinking and practicing/habituating them, especially changing or scaling one’s perspective around related stressors, we can stop depression and escape its vicious cycles. In line with its new popularity, there is growing evidence that Mindfulness meditation can be effective against depression (Deng 2014). It essentially stops it before it starts by helping us disengage from negative thought patterns.
Many approaches to therapy can be thought of as exercising one’s factors of well-being. And, more on that later.
Medication
You’ve probably heard something like this before: “Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain.” Where did this common refrain come from?
In the 1960s, the serotonin theory of depression was first proposed (Coppen 1967). By the 1990s, this theory was promoted widely by the pharmaceutical industry, and by now it is well established, informing the perspectives of the public and the professionals who treat them.
While there is some truth to the serotonin theory (just about any mental illness could be classified as a “chemical imbalance”), this framing might preemptively rationalize the blanket usefulness of chemical treatment. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) now comprise the majority of all antidepressant medication, which was a 13.5 billion dollar industry in 2020 (Swain 2021).
Like depression itself, medical treatment of depression is complex. They can and often do genuinely help people with depression.
And, there are a few important caveats:
- Antidepressants don’t work the way most people think – Both therapists and the public continue to misunderstand antidepressants, their mechanics in the brain, and especially their role in society. Despite being far along in society’s antidepressant use, there is plenty of recent science challenging their efficacy and actions in the brain (Almohammed 2022, Moncrieff 2022)
- Long-term benefits and risks of antidepressants are a mystery – Most research on antidepressants’ success is about short-term effects on depression. The effects of long-term use—plus the effects of any amount of use over a person’s entire life—are largely understudied. As always, long-term psychological studies are difficult and rare, and antidepressants are relatively new in society.
- Antidepressants are wildly over-prescribed – Before COVID, almost 13 percent of American adults were taking an antidepressant drug, and that number has, predictably, risen dramatically. Zoloft, an SSRI, is the 12th most-prescribed medication in the U.S.
So, yes, it’s important to consider the efficacy of medication in treating depression, especially if they are used short-term and in combination with other methods.
But antidepressants are not silver bullets. Medicine is business, and even though these medicines have become widespread (and very, very profitable), they may not be the best things for us.
Most importantly, antidepressants could numb and distract us from treating the causes of depression at their roots.
If you seek professional help for depression, you may receive either or both therapy and medication.
And, hopefully, therapy is tried first. It has been shown to be as effective as medication, and at times more effective (Driesen 2010, DeRubeis 2008).
Depression and Meaning In Life
Depression’s umbrella is broader than the chemical imbalance or severe trauma that necessitates medication.
In this TED talk, Johann Hari broadens the view of depression as a chemical imbalance, or a broken brain that needs a simple fix.
“Every human being has natural psychological needs. You need to feel you belong. You need to feel your life has meaning and purpose. You need to feel that people see you and value you. You need to feel you’ve got a future that makes sense.
And this culture we built is good at lots of things. […] But we’ve been getting less and less good at meeting these deep, underlying psychological needs.
If you’re depressed or anxious, you’re not weak and you’re not crazy — you’re a human being with unmet needs.”
When we consider depression through a lens of unmet needs, it becomes clearer how our ways of treating it might treat the symptoms (like feelings of sadness) instead of the cause. Even happiness can be a numbing agent, distracting us from our root causes of depression.
Despite the relative abundance of modern human society—there is more literacy, less war, longer lifespans, and greater food security than any other time in human history—depression is an epidemic. Looking at the last century, depression is rearing its head more as time moves forward. Some psychologists consider it a “disease of modernity” (Hidaka 2012).
Especially in the Western world, we can easily get caught up in a hustle, working to meet our basic needs within systems that have evolved to maximize economic output, not human well-being. Even those of us who have achieved “success” in today’s advanced societies might be missing core elements of a well-lived life, like depth in our relationships, feeling that we belong to a community, having a sense of purpose.
As far as what is causing the soaring rates of depression in the world today, there are many theories. Looking broadly, the problem is pretty clear:
Across varying ages and nationalities, low meaning in life is a major predictive factor in depression, rivaled perhaps only by physical health problems in those struggling with chronic illness (Barton 2017, Pitanupong 2023, Hedayati 2014, Radicic 2019, Macia 2021)
The benefits of meaning in life are clear and striking.
Not only is a sense of meaning and purpose like an antidote to depression, it even shows benefits to one’s physical health, career success, and other less-than-obvious aspects of life.
Check out the “Why Meaning?” page and the infographic on the power of meaning:
Tools for Depression Found Here
If you are struggling with depression—especially if you are one of the many people who are encountering suicidal ideation—reach out and find professional help. There is help out there for you.
While a therapist will have knowledge and training to help you address depression, there is no silver bullet. What a therapist will do is advise you on your journey of working on your own well-being.
That is what this site is all about.
What You’ll Find Here
Meaning is key to living well, but that isn’t the end of the story.
Across this site, meaning and its four cornerstones (love, service, expression, and discovery) are part of a handful of models for understanding well-being.
Psychological well-being is both an art and a science. Understanding and practicing its many interrelated factors is a lifelong journey that we are all on together.
This site is a massive collection of information, tools, and resources, for improving your life. Here is an overview of how you can utilize it to combat and prevent depression, and live your life more optimally.
Assess Your Factors of Well-Being
Start with pinpointing your Strengths, Capabilities, and Growth Zones. The Assessment Center is the most comprehensive collection of well-being assessments on the web. You can use it to measure over 50 factors and hundreds of subfactors on what brings you joy, from the cornerstones of meaning to your sense of Hope and Curiosity.
Understand “Happiness”
Step back and start over on how you think about so-called “happiness.” Learn what makes the language we use for well-being so misleading, get to know the four Elements of Well-Being, uncover how happiness itself can hinder living to the fullest.
Practice the Enablers
These are the ‘life skills’ that make us better at the human experience. They strengthen the cornerstones of meaning and scaffold living with more grace and mastery. They are skills like Mindfulness, Gratitude, Challenge, and many more.
For those above and every subject covered on this site, you will find a curated walkthrough for understanding that piece of the well-being journey, sprinkled with exercises and resources from around the web.
As you travel, especially if you are wrestling with depression now, remember that you are not alone. The journey of well-being is one we all share, and we are in it together.
Links
On Depression
Understanding Depression
- Psychology Today: Basics of Depression – A bit more depth than what’s offered here on the basics of depression, including insightful stats and helpful treatment options.
- Detecting Depression – A challenging part of depression can be recognizing it. This article from WebMD gives some helpful tips for detecting it in yourself and others.
- Sneaky Depression Triggers as you Age: A slideshow from WebMD exposing things that can cause depression as you age.
- How Miserable Are We Supposed to Be? – A guest essay remarking on the difficulty of separating depression from low mood.
Practical Guides and Resources
- American Psychological Association – This page offers some quick links on understanding and treating depression, and gives you a database for finding a psychologist.
- This Way Up – clinically proven online courses for helping with depression and other mental health issues.
- 7 Cups – It’s the 21st century. You can connect with caring listeners online for emotional support, free.
- Woebot – “An AI chatbot for mental health? No way.” Yes. WAY. There is research showing that Woebot’s algorithms help people. It’s free and can be used with facebook messenger and other apps.
- Conquering Depression 101 – A video outline of a course that presents a handful of core skills to overcome depression.
- Helpguide: Coping with Depression – a more extensive article about methods for battling depression, including a ‘wellness toolbox’ and a short list of helpful organizations.
Personal Stories
- 10 Actors Open Up about Their Battles with Depression – Depression is normal and ok. Since it’s often misunderstood, it may be helpful to see these iconic people share their battles.
- Huffpost: ‘7 Things I Wish I’d Known When I Was Battling Depression’ – This article is personal, insightful, and pragmatic.
Problems With Medical Treatment
- Depression is probably not caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain – A look at some new studies critiquing SSRI’s.
- How Much Do Antidepressants Help, Really? – “While the drugs are widely used, a new study sheds light on how little is known about their long-term benefits.”
- How Is Depression Treated? Let Me Show You. – A click-through interactive article about the struggles of depression treatment from the NYT.
- Antidepressants Don’t Work the Way Many People Think – A straight-forward critique of depression treatment’s reception in the world, from the NYT.
Helping Others
- Five Ways to Help Someone With Depression – A helpful article from Greater Good Berkeley.
- How Do You Serve a Friend in Despair? – A practical and personal story from the NYT.
On Suicide
- American Psychological Association – This page offers some quick links on understanding and treating suicide, and gives you a database for finding a psychologist.
- Why Do People Kill Themselves? – An article by Scientific American about the sometimes dangerous power of the mind.
- Psychology Today: Basics About Suicide: Basics about Suicide – A bit more depth than what’s offered here on suicide, including insightful stats and helpful treatment options.
- A Public Health Approach to Suicide – An APA article about the Suicide Prevention Resource Center.
- Why We Kill Ourselves – Despite being a successful psychologist and writer, the author of this book struggled with suicidal inclinations for years. Breaking that cycle, he wrote this book from a point of curiosity, hoping to understand how we as people live in that mindset.
- Surgeon General’s National Strategy – a quick collection of links and resources regarding suicide, as well as a video: “We all have a role to play in preventing suicide.”
- Some Practical Thoughts on Suicide – A sort of confessional attempting to lift the veil on suicide.
Videos
Johann Harri: This could be why you’re depressed
This talk approaches the core misconceptions and causes of Depression. Meaning and Purpose are central.
Clinical Depression by Osmosis
An informative look at the clinical types of depression. 10.5 min
The Lesser-Known Symptoms of Depression
What it really can feel like to be in those shoes. 5.5 min
(Lots of valuable facts. Visit youtube page for sources)
We Need to Talk about Depression
An informative and detailed video from Johns Hopkins about Depression, with informative statistics and need-to-know insights. 12 min
Depression: A Student’s Perspective
Demystifying depression and sharing information for students. 6 min
‘I’m Fine’: Learning to Live with Depression
This TED talk personalizes and gives a deep look into the life of someone who is depressed. 16 min
Depression and Bipolar Disorder
Incredible as always, Crash Course gives an academic look at the psychology of Depression and Bipolar Disorder. 10 min
John Vaervaeke – Awakening from the Meaning Crisis
An academic look at the crisis of meaning, spoken of here on the Psychology podcast.
References:
- Almohammed, O. A., Alsalem, A. A., Almangour, A. A., Alotaibi, L. H., Al Yami, M. S., & Lai, L. (2022). Antidepressants and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) for patients with depression: Analysis of the medical expenditure panel survey from the United States. PloS One, 17(4), e0265928. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265928
- Barton, Y. A., Barkin, S. H., & Miller, L. (2017). Deconstructing depression: A latent profile analysis of potential depressive subtypes in emerging adults. Spirituality in Clinical Practice (Washington, D.C.), 4(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1037/scp0000126
- Depression. (n.d.). Who.int. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://www.who.int/health-topics/depression
- Beck, A. T. (2008). The evolution of the cognitive model of depression and its neurobiological correlates. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 165(8), 969–977. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2008.08050721
- Coppen, A. (1967). The biochemistry of affective disorders. The British Journal of Psychiatry: The Journal of Mental Science, 113(504), 1237–1264. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.113.504.1237
- Deng, Y.-Q., Li, S., & Tang, Y.-Y. (2014). The relationship between wandering mind, depression and mindfulness. Mindfulness, 5(2), 124–128. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-012-0157-7
- DeRubeis, R. J., Siegle, G. J., & Hollon, S. D. (2008). Cognitive therapy versus medication for depression: treatment outcomes and neural mechanisms. Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 9(10), 788–796. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2345
- Driessen, E., & Hollon, S. D. (2010). Cognitive behavioral therapy for mood disorders: efficacy, moderators and mediators. The Psychiatric clinics of North America, 33(3), 537–555. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psc.2010.04.005
- Furlong, M., & Oei, T. P. S. (2002). Changes to automatic thoughts and dysfunctional attitudes in group cbt for depression. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 30(3), 351–360. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1352465802003107
- Maryam Hedayati, M. A., & Mahmoud Khazaei, M. A. (2014). An investigation of the relationship between depression, meaning in life and adult hope. Procedia, Social and Behavioral Sciences, 114, 598–601. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.12.753
- Hidaka B. H. (2012). Depression as a disease of modernity: explanations for increasing prevalence. Journal of affective disorders, 140(3), 205–214. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2011.12.036
- Macià, D., Cattaneo, G., Solana, J., Tormos, J. M., Pascual-Leone, A., & Bartrés-Faz, D. (2021). Meaning in Life: A Major Predictive Factor for Loneliness Comparable to Health Status and Social Connectedness. Frontiers in psychology, 12, 627547. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.627547
- Moncrieff, J., Cooper, R. E., Stockmann, T., Amendola, S., Hengartner, M. P., & Horowitz, M. A. (2022). The serotonin theory of depression: a systematic umbrella review of the evidence. Molecular Psychiatry, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-022-01661-0
- Pitanupong, J., Phirom, W., Kittichet, R., & Anantapong, K. (2023). Prevalence and associated factors of depressive symptoms among patients with cancer receiving radiotherapy in southern Thailand: a university hospital-based cross-sectional study. BMC Palliative Care, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12904-023-01145-0
- Radicic, J. S., & Rivardo, M. G. (2019). The relationships between meaning in life, spirituality, and depression. North American Journal of Psychology, 21, 525. https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA603152530&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=15277143&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E442dd49
- Swain, R., & Kharad, S. (2021). Antidepressant Drugs Market Size By Drug Class (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors {SSRIs}, Serotonin-norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors (SNRIs) work in a similar way to SSRIs except that they inhibit the reuptake of both norepinephrine and serotonin {SNRIs}, Tricyclic Antidepressants), By Application (Major Depressive Disorder, Obsessive-compulsive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder), COVID-19 Impact Analysis, Regional Outlook, Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2021 – 2027. Global Market Insights Inc.