What are the psychological reasons for depression? Psychologically-based depressions result from overwhelming emotional or social circumstances. These kinds of depressions can usually be traced back to specific events in your life or to particular relationships. The specific reasons for psychological depression vary greatly from person to person. Depression can often be traced back to childhood, but not always. Traumas in adulthood can contribute to depressed feelings, as well.The cause of your depression can range from an abusive relationship to getting fired from a job but, whatever the cause, depression negatively affects your sense of yourself and undermines your self-esteem. If you’re feeling really down, you probably believe there’s something crucially flawed about you. This contributes to your feeling that things can never get better for you.How can you tell if depression is psychologically based? There are several signs that your depression is psychologically based. Usually, people with psychologically-based depressions can identify a time in their lives when they didn’t feel depressed. Identifying and understanding the circumstances that caused you to feel depressed is the first step toward feeling better.It can sometimes take time to sort out whether what’s affecting you has a biochemical, as well as a psychological, origin. Traumatic experiences, though psychological in origin, can trigger biochemical changes that result in depression. When you work hard in therapy, arrive at a good understanding of the sources of your depression and still don’t feel better, there is sometimes a biochemical issue that needs to be addressed with medication.What does a biochemically-based depression look like? Just like psychologically-based depressions, biochemically-based depressions can take different forms. You may have “vegetative” signs, such as insomnia, loss of appetite or fatigue. In my experience, people who are suffering from biochemically-based depressions have a particular propensity to reverse cause and effect. Everything in your life feels bad—your work, your relationship, the place you live, the weather. It feels to you like those things are causing your depressed mood. In fact, you’re experiencing all of those things negatively because of your depressed mood. Sometimes, medication is required to alter your mood so that you can experience things positively again.How do you treat psychologically-based depressions? With psychologically-based depressions, we work to understand the life experiences that are the sources of your depression. At the core of a psychologically-based depression is your feeling that there’s something wrong with you, that’s preventing you from having a satisfying life. How did you come to have this feeling? You weren’t born with it. You had experiences that led you to conclude that something disqualifies you from having the life you want. Perhaps your parents were overwhelmed with their own problems, and their inattention led you to believe that you weren’t important to them, or to anyone else. Perhaps your parents blamed you for their problems, and you concluded that you were “bad,” and could never please other people. There are as many experiences that contribute to psychological depression as there are individuals. My job is to help you understand yours so that you can experience yourself differently.History is not destiny. Your early experiences don’t have to define you. The more you can see that your depression is an understandable response to actual events in your life, the more you can have faith that your future doesn’t have to be like your past, and you can have the meaningful, satisfying life that you long for.Is depression a mental illness? Click here to read more. Click to learn more about depression therapy and treatment with Jane Rubin, Ph.D.