Depressive disorders form one of the most popular diagnostic categories. Many people who feel badly psychologically say they are “depressed” and generally use this concept as if it were a simple discomfort that goes beyond physical pain.

However, sadness and depression are far from the same. The second is a disorder that needs to be diagnosed and that, in part, does not depend on the situations we are living in at work, family context or leisure time.

There are many factors that can lead to the development of these kinds of disorders; from the biochemical imbalances of the nervous system that genetics predisposes us to, to past learning and the way we evoke memories that have to do with our life trajectory. We will now focus on this second type of reason, the psychological causes of depression .

The Psychology Behind Depression

It is clear that all psychological causes are, in a sense, biological as well. In the end, to avoid being so, we would have to accept that our mind is something separated from the body, an idea totally rejected by science and that only corresponds to philosophical dualism.

However, when we refer to the fact that there are psychological causes of depression we are talking about a type of pathological root that, although it occurs within the human organism, not only depends on the simple expression of genes and innate characteristics, but to understand it we have to consider the way in which the interaction with the environment influences this biology.

Thus, the fact of having seen many close friends and relatives die during childhood is something that can only happen if we have a nervous system capable of processing these experiences and assume them as highly stressful and traumatic moments, but at the same time there is a component that has to do with what happens in the environment , outside oneself. Unlike imbalances in the levels of neurotransmitter production that have genetic causes, in this case our life experiences matter.

So… what are these psychological causes of depression? Here are the main ones.

1. Pessimistic bias

There are ways of interpreting reality that lead us to constantly make a pessimistic reading of the facts . For example, if we believe that all our apparent achievements are the product of luck and that all our failures are the consequence of innate characteristics that will always be in us and we cannot manage to change, this contributes to our being more exposed to bad experiences.

These are, therefore, facts that have to do with our style of attribution (the way in which we elaborate explanations about what happens), but also with the way in which we establish predictions about what is going to happen to us.

2. Lack of stimulation

One of the characteristics of depression is that under its effects people become lacking in initiative and, in many cases, are not even able to experience pleasure (phenomenon known as anhedonia). This has led some researchers to hypothesize that one of the psychological causes of depression is the lack of positive reinforcement (something like rewards for carrying out actions), after having gone through a period in which the person has become accustomed to them.

For example, if after finishing university we find that we no longer have an exciting project that motivates us and gives us small rewards on a daily basis, we may have trouble finding new motivations and after a while this may lead to emotional stagnation.

3. Attention management problems

This psychological cause of depression is closely linked to the first one, and has to do with the tendency of our attention to always focus on those facts that make us feel bad. In certain contexts, people can learn to fix all their attention on what is painful , sad or that produces hopelessness, as if there were a feeling of morbid fascination with them. In this way, little by little, the content of the thoughts becomes fixed in unpleasant experiences.

Moreover, this partial vision of reality means that we live in a very distorted world that, moreover, does not change when the facts send us signs that the world is not as dark as we think. As we will have learned to fix our attention on the worst , also those contradictory facts will be unconsciously manipulated to fit our vision of reality, as it happened, for example, in the case of the youtuber Marina Joyce.

4. Trauma linked to the past

Traumatic experiences, especially those related to events that occurred during childhood (a vital stage in which we are especially sensitive to experiences) can leave a mark that is difficult to erase and that, over time, generates a chain reaction that leads us to depression.

For example, having accidentally killed a pet can leave one’s self-esteem very damaged , create an aversion to the possibility of creating new emotional bonds and make those traumatic memories appear as intrusive images at any time, making the appearance of depressive symptoms more likely. The same could happen, for example, in cases of sexual abuse during childhood.

However, it should be noted that everything depends on how these memories and situations are interpreted, since these experiences, by themselves, do not have to trigger depression in a deterministic way.

5. Tendency to obsessive thinking

The need to make our lives fit perfectly with certain mental schemes is a characteristic of an obsessive style of thinking that, in addition to leading to constant perfectionism, can increase the risk of experiencing depression. The reason is that life hardly fits these expectations of perfection.