What Causes Depression?

Sometimes depression is caused by an obvious trigger such as bereavement or a relationship break-up. However, there is not always an apparent reason for becoming depressed. Depression can be caused by bottling-up old emotional wounds and by avoiding emotional pain when it is appropriate and necessary to do so.

Perhaps, after a break-up you immediately enter another relationship to avoid feeling the loss of the old one? If you re-bound several times over the years, a lot of emotional baggage may build-up, and eventually cause depression.

Another example is the person who has had a very unhappy childhood, but who put on a brave face and compensated by being very successful in life, only to find that life seems empty and pointless. Depression can follow such a significant disappointment. However, the link to the person’s past may not be obvious.

Counselling for depression involves exploring the past and making links between what happening now, and those past wounds that might have been triggered by the current situation. Therapy for depression is usually very successful in treating depression of this kind.