Real Student Stories

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A shy person from a close-knit family, James found the move away to his second choice university and course triggered a downward spiral into depression. He hopes the story of his experience will help others challenge their resistance to seeking help... more >>

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Also in "Depression In Context"...

"I realise more and more that this habit of comparing myself to other people was the root of a lot of my problems. I wish I had good advice to help people who can't stop comparing themselves to other people, because it's awful and gives you so many more problems that it's worth." Kristy

"It's really bad for your self-esteem thinking - I've worked so hard to get this degree and this life and I'm not that special at the end of the day. If for a second, you're envious of someone else or because of their life, you're getting depressed, you're not living your life as fully as you should. Mediocrity is what you make it. If you've done your very best that you possibly could do, even if you've only got £1,000 to your name and you're 25 and you don't have a car, or whatever, it doesn't matter." Fayola

Students Against Depression
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A Depression-Inducing Society?

Inducing Depression

Widespread social factors

Factors contributing to depression include chronic stress, isolation, lack of control, and a sense of inferiority. They also include depressed thinking habits such as all-or-nothing thinking, perfectionism, and disappointment insurance or cynicism. A depression-inducing society would be one in which these factors were widespread or even promoted.

Globalisation and global culture

Modern global culture is heavily influenced by western individualism, and by powerful commercial forces promoting consumerist and materialist values. The emphasis is on individual satisfaction of "needs" which are increasingly defined commercially through advertising. Some of the effects of this are:

Isolation
Values of social responsibility, connection to others and community (eg. church, village and town life) are weakened. Where "independence" is highly valued, appropriate reliance on others can become stigmatised as "dependence". All this can leave individuals increasingly isolated and unsupported.
Lack of control
While cultural values of individual choice and responsibility are promoted, in reality individuals feel "smaller" in a bigger world and less able to influence the major decisions affecting their environment. Governments concede control to multinational corporations, political parties homogenise and voter apathy and cynicism spreads.
Unrealistic comparisons
Media-saturation celebrates and endlessly propagates unattainable superstar lifestyles and airbrushed perfection, so that social comparisons are no longer local and realistic. Models whose body shapes are unattainable for the majority come to define "successful" appearance. Even fairly financially comfortable people compare themselves unfavourably when extreme wealth is attained by some and valued by most.
Perfectionism

Unrealistic advertising slogans like "be the best" propagate depressed thinking habits like perfectionism. Increasingly being simply "ordinary" feels like "failure".
All-or-nothing thinking
In an increasing "blame" culture, complex systemic causes are ignored in favour of pinning blame and seeking compensation. Risk aversion rises and absolute safety and certainty are demanded, with increasingly over-simplistic or all-or-nothing thinking promoted in tabloid media.
Cynicism and meaninglessness
In a sea of commercial messages about what we want, we lose sight of what actually makes us happy, much of which cannot be bought. The meaning is drained from life as cynicism becomes "cool" and hope "naïve".
Chronic stress
All of these factors contribute to chronic stress in their own right. They also contribute to a climate in which seeking help is stigmatised. Cynicism and risk aversion make it difficult to invest hope in any sources of help. A double bind is set up whereby seeking help becomes a marker of "low status", exacerbating a sense of inferiority. What does it say about a society's values when people regularly conclude that suicide is preferable to seeking any form of support or help (see making sense of suicide)?

So what?

Of course, there are also many positive aspects to modern society. What is the point of highlighting how our society might contribute to depression in this way? You might think as an individual you can do nothing to change these social factors...

What you can do is critically evaluate the influence of these social factors on your own values and assumptions, deciding which are useful to you and which are not. You may also like to look more specifically at the social factors relevant to life as a student (see depression in student life).

Re-establishing meaning

Such evaluation puts you in a position to alter your sense of being "not good enough" (see depression psychology), by choosing to identify with some of the more constructive values and beliefs which are also available to us in society. It may put you on the path to answering the crucial existential questions facing each of us as human beings (see depression and the meaning of life).

making sense of suicide > >

Links

More about factors contributing to depression: why me? , depression biology , depression psychology , depression sociology
More about how depression works: the depression habit spiral , depressed thinking , stress, anxiety and anger
More about critically evaluating depression: ways of seeing depression , making sense of suicide , depression in student life , depression and the meaning of life
Check page references (*): references and sources

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Real Student Stories

A Depression-Inducing Society?

Widespread social factors

Globalisation and global culture

Isolation

Lack of control

Unrealistic comparisons

Perfectionism

All-or-nothing thinking

Cynicism and meaninglessness

Chronic stress

So what?

Re-establishing meaning

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Links