Depression and Suicide

Abstract

Depression is a killer. As a disorder it destroys incentive, enthusiasm, concentration and interest in life, and as a disease that may be unrelieved it can, by leading to suicide, destroy the life of its sufferer. There is dispute amongst psychiatrists about whether depressive illness can be ‘endogenous’ (arriving often unheralded by physical disturbance or upset in the social environment) or ‘reactive’ (when clear reasons can be detected and presumed to be at least to some degree causative). The endogenous type, if the classification is accepted, is the one that more commonly affects the middle-aged and is more severe; the reactive type is, however, more common in the young. It may all in the long-term prove to be a disorder of the body’s chemistry anyway, and these behavioural classifications that are now convenient may be outmoded once the biochemistry and physiology of man’s most precious asset-the brain-is understood. Notwithstanding any surmise, however, it is certainly true that when the adolescent is depressed there are often many environmental reasons that seem obvious, and if they are not the actual cause, the depression nevertheless can be seen as an understandable reaction to them.