Cause of Depression - Essay Example

Cause of Depression Cause of Depression All people experience ups and downs on a daily basis. Sadness is a common reaction when human beings experience disappointments, setbacks, and struggles in their lives. Depression is used by many people to explain these feelings, but depression is more than just normal sadness. It engulfs people’s lives by interfering with their ability to work, have fun with others, study, sleep, or even eat. The feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, and helplessness are always extreme and unrelenting with little relief.

These are characteristics of a depressed person. Depression interferes with an individuals’ daily life and causes a lot of pain to the depressed person and those who care about him/her. Depression is a tremendously complex illness. It occurs due to a mixture of reasons. There are exist many factors that can lead to depression such as loneliness, financial strain, drug abuse, health problems, marital problems, family history of depression, stress, and lack of social factors. People experience depression due to a serious medical illness or life happenings such as the death of a loved one.

The cause of depression is highly debatable by various groups and professionals. There are the cognitive, neurological, chemical, behavioral, and environmental groups. One can roughly divide them into environment, mind, and body viewpoints (Porter, 2002). The argument is further convoluted by the fact that depression a disease and a symptom of other diseases at the same time. It is explicitly clear that depression is caused by a combination of various factors, such as the person’s biological environment, genes, psychological factors and his personal experience.

Cognitions or thoughts are the main causes of depression. It involves thinking of things in a negative manner. Depressed people always misunderstand events. They make bad events look as if they are worse and also misinterpret neutral or good happenings as bad. Cognitive theories have been prominent in explaining the causes of depression since the early behaviorists had failed to take feelings and thoughts seriously. Cognitive Behavioral theories are considered “cognitive” since they attend to mental events such as feelings and thinking.

Cognitive behavioral theorists propose that depression results from faulty, maladaptive, or irrational cognitions which take the form of distorted judgments or thoughts. Depressive cognitions can be erudite socially as in the case of a dysfunctional family where children can watch their parents fail to cope with traumatic events. Depressive cognitions can also result from lack of experiences that can ease the development of adaptive coping skills (Mondimore, 2006). Cognitive behavioral theory argues that, depressed people always think differently than those who are not depressed.

This difference in their thinking is what causes to become depressed. For instance, depressed people view themselves, their future and their environment in a negative way. As a result, they tend to misunderstand facts in negative ways and take the blame for any misfortune that occurs (Mondimore, 1999). This thinking and judgment style works as a negative bias; it makes it possible for depressed people to look at situations as being worse than they really are and this increases their symptoms.

Depression thus affects a person’s mind and this makes it difficult for him/her to concentrate on important issues. Various cognitive behavioral theorists have come up with their own exceptional twist on the way of thinking and reasoning. Dr. Aaron Beck argues that, negative thoughts which are generated by dysfunctional beliefs are the main cause of depressive symptoms. There exist a direct relationship between the severity and amount of a person’s negative thoughts and their depressive symptoms.

The more negative thoughts an individual experiences, the more depressed he/she becomes. Beck also states that, there are three dysfunctional belief themes that control depressed people’s thinking; I am defective, all my experiences result in failures and the future is hopeless. These three themes are referred to as the Negative Cognitive Triad. Once these beliefs are present in a person’s cognition, there are high chances of depression occurring. Beck also asserted that, depressed people give selective attention to environmental aspects which confirm what they already know.

This failure to give attention properly is referred to as faulty information processing. Particular failures in information processing are characteristic of the depressed mind (Kramlinger, 2001). For instance, depressed people will demonstrate selective attention to any information, this matches their negative expectations. In spite of the various causes of depression in many societies, negative thoughts play a major role. All other factors lead to thinking and this is what greatly affects the people who are suffering from depression.

The process of thinking is continuous since when one develops depression; he/she also becomes demoralized and concentrates all the minds on the illness. Depression is an intricate illness that requires a lot of understanding and attention from relatives. References: Mondimore, F (1999). Bipolar disorder: a guide for patients and families. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Kramlinger, K (2001). Mayo Clinic. Mayo Clinic on depression. Rochester, Min.: Mayo Clinic. Mondimore, F. (2006).

Depression, the mood disease. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Porter, R. (2002). Madness: A brief history on Depression: New York: New York University Press.