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Psychoanalytic breakdown of depression
The first thing that comes to mind is the idea of what a "breakdown" actually is. In my opinion, it seems like the majority of people try to treat breakdowns as if they were something isolated and unique in themselves, rather than something which can be seen as part of an overall process or pattern. What we don't seem to take into account is the fact that there are several different types of breakdowns throughout life which have completely different causes and which must be handled differently.
When we talk about the cause of a breakdown, we often assume that there is some one thing which causes it and if we take away this one thing then the depression will stop. But in reality, things are never so simple. Breakdowns can be caused by several different circumstances and factors all at once.
Every breakdown has a number of different causes. There are certain individual factors, for example genetics or chemical imbalances in the brain, which vary from person to person and can cause depression regardless of external circumstances. However these individual factors do not create depression on their own, they must be combined with other causal agents such as negative life experiences.
The way I see it, there are three main causes of depression: a) negative experiences in life which cause stress and trauma b) genetics or chemical imbalances c) independent factors such as the weather or other circumstances. These all combine to create what we call "depression". But these causal agents can not be isolated from one another. They must work together.
The majority of people try to isolate the causes of depression into individual factors. They will say that life experiences are what cause someone to be depressed, or genetics is what makes them sad, or other external factors like weather play a role in their feelings. But these conditions can not exist independently from each other. Even if you remove all external circumstances which could potentially trigger depression, there would still have to be some kind of genetic predisposition present for the person to feel depressed.
I think the key to understanding depression is not asking what external circumstances are causing a person to be depressed, but instead trying to understand how all of these different factors work together. Depression can no longer be seen as something isolated and unique. We must recognize it as a part of an overall pattern.