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What Is Depression?

The innocuous-sounding word “depression” refers to a potentially disabling illness that affects many but is understood by few. Sufferers often do not realize the nature of their terrible malaise until they are so devastated that they can no longer help themselves, or they may recognize what they have been through only after they are on their way out of the shadows. The reason is simple. Depression is a sneak thief, slipping into a life gradually and robbing it of meaning, one loss at a time. The losses are imperceptible at first, but eventually weigh so heavily that the person’s life becomes empty. Once begun, the course of depression varies with the individual and with the form of the illness. Untreated, it can last weeks, months, or even years.

In the general population, as many as one in five individuals may eventually suffer a significant depressive illness, although most will not seek treatment. During any year, one in ten people experience the sluggishness of mind, body, and spirit we know as depression. The risk is about the same in prepubertal boys and girls, but the ratio alters in adulthood, with females twice as likely as males to become depressed. This two-to-one ratio exists regardless of racial, ethnic, or economic background and has been reported in several countries.

Although depression can occur in very young children, even in those under five years of age, it is more likely to occur for the first time during teenage years or in early adulthood. Depression can also occur for the first time in midlife or later.

Depression tends to run in families. Children of depressed parents have a twofold-to-threefold greater risk of developing depression than children of non depressive parents. Studies of families with histories of depression in many of their members support the theory that predisposition to depression can be inherited. Since the family tendency could be explained by similar environments rather than by genes, twins who have been adopted outside their biological families and reared apart have been studied with regard to risk for depression. Most of those studies show that if one identical twin (identical twins share the same genes) suffers from depression, the second twin will have a 70 percent chance of also becoming depressed, while the risk for siblings who are not identical twins is only about 25 percent. If heredity were the only factor, the shared rate of depression in identical twins would be 100 percent. Since this is not the case, genetics cannot be the only factor involved. At this point, no single gene has been identified as the culprit in causing depression, and it is more likely that several genes are involved.

According to the fertile ground theory, heredity and environment collude to cause depression. Environmental factors that may be important in causing depression include loss of a parent early in life, separation or divorce of parents, rearing patterns, abuse, low socioeconomic class, and recent life stresses.