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MYTH 1:

 

"Difficult Life Situations Cause Depression."
   
Difficult life situations are not the
cause of depression. What can cause
depression is how we cope with
situations. One person can suffer
from a tragic experience and not be
depressed, while a relatively trivial
problem can send someone else
into a severe depression.

           
MYTH 2:
    
"Depression is an illness you can get again and again."

It isn’t depression that is recurrent, but the difficulties that life throws at us. If you react to difficult circumstances in the same way each time, by worrying instead of overcoming the difficulty,
depression will keep manifesting.

 

 

MYTH 3:

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"Depression is passed down to children genetically."

Despite extensive research, a ‘depression gene’ that makes more than a marginal contribution to depression has never been found. And it seems unlikely that it ever
will be. What may be picked up by children from their parents are inadequate ways of coping with difficult life situations, which
makes them more prone to depression themselves, should they go on to experience difficulties.

 

 

MYTH 4:

 

"Depression is always a separate additional problem."

 

Depression is a signal that something is wrong in a person's current situation and/or the way that they are dealing with it. It is not a separate condition, unrelated to anxiety or chronic pain, for instance, to be managed long term by
therapy or anti-depressant drugs.

 

MYTH 5:

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"Depression is anger turned inwards."

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The myth that depression is ‘anger turned inwards’ has no biological basis. The expectation fulfillment theory of dreaming, for example, has shown that every night we dream to de-arouse unexpressed emotions from the day before, so anger cannot be
‘turned inwards’ in the long-term.

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MYTH 6:

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"Depression is a biological illness."

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Depression is NOT a biological illness. Of course there is a biological element to depression – every thought and emotion we have affects the levels of the feel-good brain chemical serotonin. If we are depressed, we have low levels of serotonin, whereas when we are
positive and acting positively, levels of serotonin are high. It is the depressed mood that causes changes in brain chemistry, not the other way around. Two facts that show that the chemical imbalance idea is wrong: the vast majority of depressions lift quickly when treated with effective psychological therapy. And even without therapy, in 75 per cent of cases, depression gets better on its own within six months without chemical intervention.

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MYTH 7:

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"When you have therapy for depression, you feel worse before you feel better."

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Some forms of therapy do make
you feel worse. However, effective
therapies help a person experience
positive changes in the very
first session.