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> This is interesting to me because... is there even a scientific definition of depression yet? Such that, if you have a defined list of symptoms, you are definitely depressed, and if you don't, you are definitely not depressed? It depends a bit on what you mean. In the U.S. at least, diagnosis of depression is generally based on the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).[1] That lists a number of disorders that would be categorized under "depression", including "Major Depressive Disorder", "Dysthymia", and the catchily named "Depressive Disorder Not Otherwise Specified". In the DSM, these disorders are all treated as syndromes, meaning they are defined entirely by symptoms. They may have organic causes (troubles with neurotransmitters, etc.), but the definition of each disorder does not address that issue. This is in contrast to something like influenza, which refers to a particular organic cause (infection by a certain kind of virus). As for the actual definitions, they vary in how specific they are. Major Depressive Disorder is quite specific, requiring certain kinds of episodes to occur with specified frequencies and lengths. On the other end of the scale is DD-NOS, which is essentially defined as a depression-ish thing that doesn't fit into any of the other categories. (Okay, it's a little more precise than that, but, honestly, not much.) > This is not to be mistaken for saying it doesn't exist or that it's all in someone's head - it's more just to say that if someone has depression, they have something that may deserve treatment and sensitivity, but that it's something that we still do not know exactly how to describe or diagnose, and so therefore we will just call it "depression" in the meantime. I'd say that's pretty much on target. However, biology & biochemistry are proceeding forward at a breakneck pace these days. We do have some understanding of the causes for some kinds of depression, and this understanding seems to be improving significantly each year. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Man... |