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1.5.14

Depression: The Individual Manifestation of a Social State

I don't know if this is just a chance observation, but of people I know personally or of which I heared of, and of people who write blogs I recognise more and more reports about phases of depression. And in biomedical research, this is also a big issue: Some colleagues in a neighboring institute of neuro-genetics have large projects on depression, including mouse models for this, but also large patient studies. There are big efforts, and some small results, about the importance of inherited factors (i.e. genes transmitted from one generation to the next) and about
the detrimental influences of a problematic childhood and adolescence (experiences of home violence, abuse, frequent change of partners, neglectance) for the development of depressive conditions. So the focus goes mainly to the patient himself (inherited factors) or to contributions from the surrounding family.
I think that the influence of the society (including social media) and of the working community by far underestimated ? I know of people who were really suffering from depression for long time, untill they change their job and became completely normal. And these were not people who used to complain about their former job. Nobody would have guessed that the job was somehow linked to their depressive state, maybe not even themself. But since their condition improved so much after changing job, it is obvious that parts of the problem must have been job related. And for younger patients in school age there is obviously the influence of school environment which can promote or prevent the development of depression.  Schools like in Germany or in some Asian tiger states, which are mainly to promote a high-power elite, teaching the students to follow the track of Ariana Huffington, Mark Zuckerman, Sheryl Sandberg and other role models who are unknown to have ever experienced a grey day in life, leave quite a large fraction of the young people left in a state of personal doubt. There are also several studies showing that an intensive consumption of social media steams, which are always biased to show happy people and success-stories, can contribute to depression. 
I'd be interested to know to which degree depression can be treated to focus on the patients themself, and how much the society must change the social condition that promote or cause depression.

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