Understanding Depression
Bringing together research from psychology and other disciplines, and with input from people who have experienced depression, it challenges the common assumption that it is always best thought of as an illness.
09 October 2020
BPS GuidanceBringing together research from psychology and other disciplines, and with input from people who have experienced depression, this report challenges the common assumption that it is always best thought of as an illness.
It is a human experience as individual and as complex as other human experiences like happiness or falling in love, and people experience it for as many different reasons.
The conditions we live in, how our lives compare to those of others, opportunities or lack of them, support or lack of it from those around us – all of these can play a central role.
The report argues that to seriously tackle depression, we shouldn’t wait until people are in crisis and then offer them ‘treatment’ in health settings.
We should aim to build an ‘antidepressant society’, addressing those factors - such as poverty, racism, inequality, unemployment and childhood stress and disadvantage - that we know can lead people to become depressed.