One of the problems with discussing clinical depression, is the word “depression” itself. Many people confuse a state of clinical depression — i.e. the mental illness that manifests as (sometimes periodic) states of sadness — with the normal depressed emotions that people experience from time to time. They are not the same, however. In fact, they’re often very different.

Someone can be “depressed” over a divorce, or the death of a loved one, yet not have clinical depression. The differences between these are stated rather clearly in psychiatry’s chief reference manual, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 4th edition, better known as “DSM-IV.” The criteria for clinical depression are rather specific, and the majority of the population thankfully will never meet them.

Even so, there are a lot of misconceptions out there. I can only tackle a few of them meaningfully.

Misconception 1: Depression is just a “phase” that everyone goes through. Why turn it into a mental illness? As noted, there’s a pretty specific difference between normal bouts of “depression” caused by the emotional fluctuations of everyday life, and the illnesses of clinical depression. No one is saying that a normal period of mourning a loss (for example) is a mental illness. Mental illness is when it lasts too long, or becomes so deep that a person is disabled by it.

Misconception 2: Depression was invented by the psychiatrists and the pharmaceutical companies, in order to sell chemicals and drug the public. If you think this, then perhaps a Web site on paranoid conspiracy theories would be of more interest to you, than my blog. I admit that psychiatry has many faults (in fact, I plan to address many of them here!), but there is no evidence whatever that it’s conspiring against anyone. Psychiatrists are often at odds with the pharmaceutical companies! In any case, depression has been known as an illness, long before there were psychiatrists or pharmaceutical companies. Hippocrates and other ancient Greek physicians mention melancholia in their texts, and it corresponds to what we call “clinical depression.”

Misconception 3: Depression is just an excuse for laziness. No way! All of the depressives I know, would give anything to be able to conduct productive, normal lives! In fact, many (including yours truly) manage to keep full-time jobs, and participate in other social activities. The last thing most of them want is to sit home doing nothing — but sometimes, their illness keeps them housebound, nonetheless.

Misconception 4: If you just watched your diet and took some St. John’s Wort, you’d never get depressed. The idea that clinical depression is “caused” by a bad diet, is as insupportable as any other theory of its causes that are going around. Furthermore, the jury is out on St. John’s Wort; studies have come up with conflicting information about whether it helps alleviate depression, and there have been none which even suggest that it can prevent depression.

I agree with William Styron, the famous writer and fellow depressive, who once said that the term “depression” is a poor one, and doesn’t convey how terrible it is. He prefers the ancient-Greek-derived term melancholia, and I admit to some partiality for it as well (having studied ancient Greek!).

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