Mental Illness: Depression Mental illnesses are unseen illnesses, unlike a cut or a broken arm, you can’t touch it. Many believe since they are unseen illnesses that they are not real, but more rather made up. I will be focusing mainly on depression and why it is a current problem in society today. Depression is a problem many individuals have tried to bring attention to. “Depression is an illness that occurs episodically and can be described adequately in medical terms (Kanter et al,2008).” This one reason as to why it is not perceived as a major problem, the fact that it comes and goes people see it as people making excuses to get out of doing things for example work or school. Sociology, Depression is a barrier that unless we start acknowledging it as a real illness, then we won’t be able to properly communicate and understand those who are suffering with this illness. Furthermore, Society does not grasp depression as a social problem, but rather a personal problem. One suffering through depression, because it is just them suffering it doesn’t have any impact on society. This is a false ideal that society has believed and fed through mass media. The Marxist theory is on the ways one can help explain depression. “Marx’s main concern…the relationships and effects of economic structures on man and his social relationship (Furman, 2003).” The theory helps in showing how society does have an impact on how some individual views themselves and can lead to the development of