Depression Vs Clinical Depression

Depression is described as a negative emotional state which can be categorized by feelings of low self-esteem, reduced energy and a decrease in the ability to enjoy life. There are various forms of depressions which are described as “heterogeneous states varying greatly in severity and in symptomatology” (Beigel, 1971). There is a difference between what is known as clinical depression and low mood, this distinction is said to be determined by the length of time the symptoms last and the degree to which they impact upon daily functioning. When considering the fact that depression is such a prevalent and common disorder for the human species it is argued that it could be an adaptive trait. For depression to be considered an adaption in evolutionary

Price argues that depression is an evolved mechanism that enabled our ancestors to respond to social competition and that it is an “unconscious, involuntary losing strategy” (Price, Sloman, Gardner, Gilbert & Rohde, 1994) which allowed our ancestors to inhibit their aggressive behaviour and accept defeat, therefore preventing any possible conflict which would be disadvantageous to their survival. The social competition hypothesis also argues that depressions played a role for our ancestors in signalling a message that they were no threat to rivals thus avoiding any unwanted and dangerous

This states that depressions may have evolved as an adaptive reaction to difficult problems, its purpose is to reduce disruption to rumination, which may have allowed our early ancestors time to analyse their problems. Andrews and Thomson argue that depression promotes biological changes in the body that reduce disruption to rumination. For example depression “activates neurological mechanisms that promote attentional control” (Andrews & Thomson, 2009) which they state gives information related to the analysis of complex problems “prioritized access to limited processing resources and makes depressive rumination intrusive, persistent, resistant to distraction, and difficult to suppress” (Andrews & Thomson, 2009). This hypothesis also argues that for our early ancestors, rumination helped them to solve the problems that generated their depressive states, this is argued to be an adaptive trade-off, and therefore Andrews and Thomson argue that the problems linked with depression are the result of an adaptive compromise and not due to the disorder