What Causes Depression?

February 11, 2011 - Posted by admin

Although there are now different methods of treating depression, many people wonder what causes depression. Depression affects a large number of people in different parts of the world.  It affects men and women.  It can also affect children and adolescents.  In treating depression, anti-depressants and other drug therapy may be used.  Psychotherapy may also be used to get to the bottom of the issues and understand why the symptoms exist.  These symptoms include continual sadness, exhaustion, a feeling of rejection, a sense of despair, aggravation, negative emotions and in some cases, suicidal thoughts. Depression can be a debilitating illness and sufferers require treatment and support.  Understanding more about depression and what causes it is beneficial to both the person with depression and their families or friends.

There are different factors that can affect the onset of depression.  These issues may not be the main cause as there could also be a combination of issues actually responsible for the illness.  However, risk factors for depression include a family history of depression, substance abuse such as drug and alcohol abuse, childhood or other adult trauma, problems at work, financial problems, family or marital problems, stress and anxiety.  Due to the multitude of risk factors associated with depression, talk therapy such as psychotherapy can be effective in getting to the bottom of the risk factor or the depression trigger.  Since people with depression can be very withdrawn, a doctor or trained mental health counsellor may be necessary to get to the root cause of the illness.

Determining the main cause of a person’s experience with depression can enable the best treatment to occur.  If a person is depressed because of the loss of a loved one, grief counselling may be the best treatment rather than prescribing anti-depressants.  Also, in such a case, grief counselling may be used in addition to drug therapy to keep the symptoms manageable as the triggers are identified and removed.  Research into the correlations regarding depression is still ongoing.  In diagnosing depression, doctors or mental health specialists may ask questions regarding family histories of depression or the presence of related illnesses within the family.

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 11th, 2011 at 11:35 am and is filed under Depression. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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