Every now & then my cell phone starts looking a bit tired. It gains a few bumps & scrapes from multiple drops over time. My baby son sometimes get’s hold of it and then its safety is truly in the lap of the Gods.
It functions as an electronic mini-office for me. It accompanies me everywhere and is in constant use in one way or another so it’s to be expected that it has a finite lifespan. When ever I’ve gone to buy a new handset in the past I’ve felt excited and looked forward to the all-new experience of a new phone. But I note that after purchasing a new handset, the excitement soon gives way to a familiar malaise. The apps I tend to use still look the same & function the same way. The experience of using texts, phone calls, video calls, etc is exactly the same as before. The main difference is that my bank balance has shrunk & I now have access to a few extra gizmo’s that will quickly lose their novel appeal.
How, you are probably thinking, has this got anything to do with depression?
In our first of June’s articles of Depression “Who Done It?” we spent some time exploring the reasons that depression can develop, discussing the theories of physiological factors like physical structure & chemical balance of the brain as well as psychological ideas about different parts of our psyche being in conflict and generating some kind of distress. However, I stopped short of discussing a third possibility: Our life experience & environment.
In this article I hope to draw together some information from previous articles to help us improve our understanding of depression.
We know that anxiety & depression are somehow linked. They often go hand in hand and our experience of one can drive & influence the other. We could allow ourselves to get drawn into a debate about which comes first, like the proverbial chicken & egg. However, let us leave that for another day & focus on some ideas about the mechanisms that allow these most human of experiences to drag us down into the insidious despair or emotional void that sometimes characterises depression.
There is some evidence to support the idea that depression has a genetic factor – That having parents who suffered with depression is a risk factor in itself. Although, the specific genes involved have yet to be identified and it is not yet fully understood exactly how this process works.
Genetics probably sounds like a strange place to start our exploration of the influence of environmental factors in depression. However, think of it like this – Genetics provides us with a sort of frame work from which life experience encourages certain genes & gene combinations to activate & express themselves.
It’s a very simplistic model but it permits us to easily see how physical individuality can be influenced by relatively few influential characters. There are an estimated 30,000 genes in the human genome. But this doesn’t produce a possible list of 30,000 human characteristics. The number is far greater than that because of the way that genes relate to each other & express themselves.
Imagine the English alphabet: 26 characters which together create over 1 million words in the English language alone, and this figure continues to grow because language is dynamic & constantly evolves… Just like us!
Hopefully by now it is understood that our genes influence our experience of the world, and in turn are influenced by that experience.
So, you have this alphabet-soup of a genetic structure which may mean you are more susceptible to developing depression but, so the theory goes, it takes something to trigger that depression. This is where your life experiences and circumstances take effect; But what sort of experiences & circumstances could be responsible?
Well, there are some risk factors that will probably be of little surprise to you but others there are others that might just make us all think twice about the way we live.
- Exposure to chemicals – Including:
- Exposure to pollution
- Exposure to toxins
- Substance abuse & misuse
- Natural Disaster – Including:
- Experiencing extreme weather phenomena
- Geological events like Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc
- Inferno events like bush & shrub fires
- Unnatural Disasters – Including:
- Oil spill
- Transport crashes (Plane, Train, Bus, Car, etc)
- War & civil unrest
Clearly this list isn’t exhaustive but it gives you some idea of the kind of large-scale things that people can experience that can effect our mental health. But these are fairly obvious – what about the more common events & circumstances that have become so ingrained in our daily lives that they may escape our attention as risk factors? These include:
- Family – Including:
- Abuse & neglect – This can include witnessing or being aware of abuse & neglect between family members or being a victim of abuse & neglect; Or perhaps both.
- Relationship breakdown – Including romantic relationships as well as those with friends & family.
- Parental relationship breakdown – Including separation, divorce or parental absenteeism.
- Absenteeism – To say a little more on that, this includes child separation from parents, as with children attending boarding school, or, for example, a parent working in the armed forces.
- Illness – Having a family member become seriously ill for a period of time.
- Death – Losing a parent or sibling.
- Substance abuse & misuse – This includes using substances yourself or witnessing use & abuse, particularly where addiction is involved.
- Abuse & Neglect – Experienced with perpetrators outside the family, including bullying & harassment, racism & bigotry.
- Employment – Including:
- Being unemployed.
- Having an insecure job.
- Being in a low paid job.
- Having a stressful job.
- Working for unreasonable & unpleasant people or organisations.
- Education – Including:
- Failure to note & respond to special educational needs.
- Poor teaching.
- Poor institutional supports for children.
- Moving between different schools.
- Performance assessment methods & criteria as well as pressure to meet performance standards.
- Poverty – Including:
- Poor housing.
- Low income.
- Lack of ability to meet nutritional needs.
- Living in insecure housing &/or frequently moving home.
- Socio-economic & cultural – There is a growing body of evidence that the socio-economic culture and circumstances that many in the west live in contribute significantly to the development of depression. Ideas about individualism place a lot of emphasis on individual responsibility and can exacerbate feelings of blame, guilt & shame as well as loneliness in a being that is naturally inclined towards connection with others – In short, we are social beings. Is it really such a surprise to discover that a being that is social by its very nature should become depressed when it is isolated conceptually & psychologically, as an individual.
Furthermore, capitalism & consumerism create a competitive environment in which individuals are constantly exposed to the message that individual success is tied to material wealth & consumption. Where the individual is unable to meet these criteria and experiences a lack of hope at achieving these aims, feelings of low-self worth & esteem can develop.
Additionally, when individuals achieve higher levels of material wealth, it can be become apparent that this actually does little to help us grow emotionally, psychologically, & spiritually, beyond, perhaps, providing us with a greater degree of financial security. It can be a chastening experience to learn that the very ideals you have lived by do not deliver you to the promised land that we are told to expect, with consequences for our mental health. What is more, the cultural answer to this experience…? Worker harder, earn more, take this prescription. In other words, YOU need to be ever more productive & consume more.
I hope it has become apparent by this stage that the way we are structuring the social sphere in which we live, with ideas about individualism, actually contributes to the development of depression. Levels of depression are on the rise and have been so throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. You are ten times more likely to develop depression now than those born in 1945 and since 2005, diagnoses have risen by 15%.
Despite treatments for depression improving, depression remains a growing problem.
I’ve always subscribed to the notion that prevention is better than cure. The social & economic factors in depression are well known & well understood. They may not be easy to solve but, speaking as someone who works in the industry treating individuals with issues like depression, our collective efforts are falling well short of the requirements.
It isn’t as simple as governments making more funds available to treatment programmes. It is more so about governments & citizens creating a society that is less individualistic and more collective, more inclusive, and one that ascribes less value to material wealth & consumption as a measure of someone’s net human worth.
So, if you want to limit any vulnerability you may have to depression, genetically or otherwise, focus on building strong, supportive & resilient relationships in life rather than chasing the futile goal of consuming ever more and material possession. Focus on meeting your needs and do it with others if you can. This will help develop those relationships & deepen connections.
If you would like to talk about depression or any mental health issue feel free to get in touch with us using any of the the following contact details:
Phone: (+353) 0899420568
Email: help@broadmindstherapy.org
Web: http://www.broadmindstherapy.org
Facebook: BroadMinds | Facebook
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Take care & stay safe.
Integrative Counselling And Psychotherapy 