Depression as a social convention

What about clinical depression? Sometimes depression is cause by a chemical imbalance, and not by outside forces.

You obviously have no understanding of what depression really is. If you want any statements to back that up, please consult ANY book on the subject. I'm assuming you have not, or you would have found plenty of valid points to disprove your thesis. Or you could ask pretty much anyone who has suffered from depression. Most of them will laugh at you, appraise you suspiciously, or try to hit you.

I don't think so.
Depression, while sometimes a reactionary supression of emotions, is also a hereditary chemical insufficiency.

Depresso (our lab rat) could have been born with the genetic marker for depression, and though raised in a vaccuum, still test positive for depression~~while Child B, raised in same vaccuum, does not show Depresso's level of depression.

Scoates, I have consulted people who have suffered from depression and they fall right in line with my thesis. And no, they do not intiate force, they are rational logical beings. I do not know much on the subject of chemical imbalances but that seems very deterministic. Again, i know very little on this subject, I asked the question to become more knowledgable of it.

The hypothetical boy in your example is not experiencing depression. He is experiencing loneliness.

I'm having trouble with the hypothetical boy situation as well. Although loneliness could lead to depression, most kids just find different friends than the popular crowd. That whole scenario seems to me to be more about socialization than depression. Also, some kids have no problems being alone. I was one of them. Even when nobody was around, I found ways to keep myself busy. The other inherent problem with your thesis is that it suggests that society is responsible for an individual's depression, and you will be torn apart on that hypothesis. Not only is it patently false based on medical research, it suggests that depression is incurable because we must live in a society that perpetuates it. I think the therapists who work with true deppresives would have your head on a platter for that one. What you have now, quite frankly, is an opinion, not a thesis. You must do more research. Now, if you go the route that depression, like alcoholism, can be triggered by societal conventions, you would be on sounder ground.

A thought, jaco.
Its the chicken and the egg.
Maybe you observe alot of depressed people who are socially isolated. You may think--they are isolated because they are jealous of others, therefore they are depressed....when the truth is--they are depressed, this affects their ability to 'socialize in an acceptable "normal" way'--therefore they are ostracised for being 'different'.

Actually I prefer the term melancholia, much a more romantic term for a sad state within the mind but that's just me.

Ahh Joanne, melancholy is Romeo pining for Juliet, and indeed it is romantic. However, for the sake of this thread, here is a basic lowdown on clinical depression with some links that jaco can look at:

http://www.nmha.org/ccd/index.cfm

Thanks for the link cav but I have it, clinical depression and depression has been with me ever since I can remember. Zoloft makes me well.- not depressed most of the time which what I think life is like for non clinically depressed folks. But I still prefer the older term as it is less clinical..

My isolation is a choice I made for many reasons. Lately, within the last year or so I have been venturing forth in the world again. And most of the time I find it OK and some of the time it is great.

The isolation part was for me a result of Post Tramatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), it was just easier to not be with people. While eventually the need to be with people came back I found once isolated it is exceeding hard to get out of it.

And then there are the evil twins, anxiety and panic disorder. Sheesh, this stuff gets me down. But on the bright side my shrink told me the other day I do not have to be normal because I am an artist!

Now that, being allowed to be afflicted with depression, stress, anxiety, and panic because I am artistic to be a social construct.

Not all depression, trigerred by chemical imbalance is genetic in origin. Neither are all psychotic diseases genetic in origin. DNA is not the "end all " for all mental diseases.

I'll be back, I have no time now. But DSM lists five major mood disorders involving depression-- under each they break it down into even more varieties.-- all with different symptom and reasons. What disorder are you speaking of?

The best way to become informed on the subject of depression is to read and to take college level courses on the subject of mental illness.

Yes. Mental illnes is a very complicated subject. Many branches of science and medicine are involved in the study. Some disorders are confused with others and it's not easy to dignose or pin down a cause for it in each individual patient.

Joanne, just to let you know, I suffer from generalized anixiety disorder, panic attacks and depression as well. I was to stubborn to take drugs, but cognitive behavioural therapy helped me a lot. I still have my days, but they are way easier to get through now.

truth
Jacob, I congratulate you on your courage to lay out for us to barbeque a piece of original thought. No doubt chemical imbalance accounts for a good portion of depression. I have been a beneficiary of good chemistry, as I boasted somewhere else. I am very rarely depressed. The only times I've felt really blue was the two times I was rejected by girl friends in my youth. These experiences involved not only "blueness", qua loss of interest in my usual passions, but anxiety as well. I feel that both cases involved a sense of loss of value. I was rejected--I felt, unconsciously--because I was unworthy. This also involved a degree of shame: being below par. Since then I've gained enough self-esteem (and, paradoxically, a sense of the unreality of ego) to be relatively insulated from such episodes. Oh, and happy marriages (one ending in death) have certainly added to that insulation.
Congratulations again: your "hypothesis" has stimulated us to think about an important topic.

You misunderstood my first sentence. I said while it is sometimes is a reactionary supression of emotions--like when something external happens to cause depression--it can also be a chemical imbalance, with no precipitating factor, other than genetics... Looking back, I can see how my poor sentence structure could cause a misunderstanding of what I meant.

Sorry for inconvenience.

Cav, thanks I just looked up CBT to make sure that I knew what it meant and I have been doing some CBT recently but unfortunately my new shrink cut back the anti-anxiety drugs at the same time I started school and the CBT and it does not seem to be working for me as I had hoped. I have decided to change doctors. I might be one of those people who needs to be addicted to anti anxiety drugs to stay upright and in the world.

In the mean time I will continue to struggle. Maybe some day my life will calm down. Like JLN I have suffered the loss of loved ones more than once and the impact of those losses has left some scar tissue. And have unfortunately been exposed to too much trauma - more than most people can comprehend.

I categorize the stuff that has happened to me three ways. The stuff I caused, the stuff other people caused, and the stuff I have no control over. Recently I have been in a nosedive as a number of really awful things have happened to me in a very short period of time. And only in one instance did I have any control over the situation. Needless to say the stuff I participated in willingly causes the most distress.

But some day I will get it together again as I have not always been this way. I should say this bad off.

Sometime I do believe that I must have had a hell of a past life since I seem to have attracted so much bad karma that needs to be worked off.

But I have my Sensei and my hero right here at A2k and the keep me keeping on.

Even if it's true that you'll be torn apart on that hypothesis because of its subversive effect on the society, it is not a reason that automatically falsifies that hypothesis - so long as there is some truth in it.