Concept
Depression (mood)
Overview
Depression is a mental state of low mood and aversion to activity. It affects about 3.5% of the global population, or about 280 million people worldwide, as of 2020. Depression affects a person's thoughts, behavior, feelings, and sense of well-being. The pleasure or joy that a person gets from certain experiences is reduced, and the afflicted person often experiences a loss of motivation or interest in those activities. People with depression may experience sadness, feelings of dejection or lack of hope, difficulty in thinking and concentration, hypersomnia or insomnia, overeating or anorexia, or suicidal thoughts.
Depression can have multiple, sometimes overlapping, origins. Depression can be a normal temporary reaction to life events, such as the loss of a loved one. Additionally, depression can be a symptom of some mood disorders, such as major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and dysthymia. Depression is also a symptom of some physical diseases and a side effect of some drugs and medical treatments.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Depression (mood) is discussed.
That dominant depression is _primarily fought_ by weapons which reduce the consciousness of life itself to the lowest degree.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals The Complete Works, Volume Thirteen, edited by Dr. Oscar Levy.
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
But depression after the act does not need to be rational: indeed, it is certainly not so at all, for it rests upon the erroneous assumption that the act need not necessarily have come to pass. Therefore: only because man deems himself free, but not because he is free, does he experience remorse and the stings of conscience.--Moreover, this depression is something that can be grown out of; in many men it is not…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human
states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
But since his time a great change of opinion has taken place on this subject, and of late it has become the general rule of practice (if rule can be predicated, where opinions are so vague and indeterminate) not to interfere, even in cases of depression, unless urgent symptoms have supervened. The late Mr.
Hippocrates, The genuine works of Hippocrates, Vol. 1
names the idea
It is well known that there are people the general colour of whose mood oscillates periodically from an excessive depression through some kind of intermediate state to an exalted sense of well-being. These oscillations appear in very different degrees of amplitude, from what is just noticeable to those extreme instances which, in the shape of melancholia and mania, make the most painful or disturbing inroads upon…
Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and The Analysis of The Ego
names the idea; opens on it
_Verruca Strömia_, when attached to shells destitute of an epidermis, excavates, as he informed me, a slight depression, deepest in the middle; but when the epidermis is present no effect whatever is produced. We shall presently see that the central depression is in some degree distinct from that of the circumference. I have since found Mr. Hancock's observations strictly applicable to _V. lævigata_, _V. Spengleri_…
Charles Darwin, A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia
states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
Philosophers who discussed Depression (mood)
Related ideas
- Cognition
- Hippocrates
- Ancient Greek
- Feeling
- Pleasure
- Mood (psychology)
- Viktor Frankl
- Mental state
- Motivation
- Grief
- Racism
- Slavery
- Humanistic psychology
- Public health
- Behavior
- Oxford University Press
- Samuel Johnson
- Hope
- Cognitive behavioral therapy
- Logotherapy
- Colonialism
- Prejudice
- Evolution
- Robert Scott (philologist)
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Absurdism.