No, there is no singular cause of depression. Researchers and clinicians recognise that depression arises from a combination of factors. No two people’s experiences are identical, and no single trigger fully explains the condition. Key contributors include:
Your Experiences in Early Life
Trauma, neglect, unstable caregiving or childhood stress can shape the developing brain, affecting emotional regulation and stress responses later in life.
If You’ve Experienced Chronic Stress or Burnout
Workplace pressure, financial strain, caring responsibilities, or long-term uncertainty can all overwhelm the body’s stress-response systems.
Your Neuroplasticity and Brain Circuits
Instead of focusing purely on chemicals, modern neuroscience looks at communication patterns between brain regions. Depression often involves:
- Overactivity in the brain’s self-critical or ruminative circuits
- Reduced connectivity in areas linked with motivation or reward
- Difficulties shifting mental states or emotional “stuckness”
Your Genetics
Genes may increase vulnerability, but they don’t solidify whether someone will develop depression. They interact with the environment and also experience.
Your Lifestyle and Physical Health
Poor sleep, low physical activity, chronic pain, inflammation and diet all contribute to mood regulation.
Your Social Circle and Environment
Loneliness, feeling a lack of meaning, unstable relationships and community disconnection can increase the chance of experiencing depressive episodes.
Depression is not one thing. It is many things happening simultaneously. And this understanding is essential for creating effective treatment plans.
Why Is It Helpful to Change the Way We Understand and Talk About Depression?
Shifting the conversation around depression has tangible benefits. It empowers people rather than defining them. It opens doors to treatments beyond medication. It reduces stigma. And, it supports the idea of personalised medicine.
If you believe your depression is caused by ‘faulty’ brain chemicals, you may feel powerless over it. But when depression is understood as a condition that responds to many kinds of interventions, new possibilities and hope emerge.
Antidepressants do help millions, but they are not the only (or necessarily the most effective) option for everyone. Psychotherapy, lifestyle changes, social reconnection, trauma-based approaches, can all work and should be determined for the individual, not as a what works for others.
Tailored care is essential.
Ketamine Therapy Is a Modern Approach to a Complex Condition
One of the most significant developments of recent years is ketamine therapy, which is an evidence-based treatment offered at Eulas Clinics.
What Makes Ketamine Therapy Different?
Antidepressants can take weeks or months to work, if at all, and they usually require trying a few different types. Ketamine often produces effects within hours or days.
It acts on glutamate, a neurotransmitter linked with learning, emotion and neuroplasticity. In doing so, ketamine may:
- Interrupt engrained negative thought patterns
- Enhance neuroplasticity (which is your brain’s capacity to rewire)
- Reduce emotional reactivity
- Provide relief from persistent low mood
- Create a window in which therapeutic work becomes more accessible and also effective
Why Combine Ketamine with Psychotherapy?
Ketamine alone may offer temporary symptom relief, but the approach needs to be paired with psychotherapy to benefit.
At Eulas, sessions are guided by highly trained ketamine psychotherapists who support clients before, during and after their ketamine experiences.
This integrated approach helps individuals:
- Understand and process emotions
- Break long-standing cognitive patterns
- Explore their unconscious beliefs
- Build resilience and self-awareness
- Integrate insights into everyday life
The medicine essentially creates the openness. Psychotherapy transforms it into long-term change.
