> the team argues that the understanding of depression conveyed on many sites is often "based on circular logic," which could leave those aiming to understand their low mood worse off. They reference recent research that found that emotional regulation is more successful when people were aware of the causes of their suffering – if educational material bills depression as causative, however, some of those with the condition may not look further to identify potentially-addressable causative factors.<p>I have been under the impression that the deal with ‘clinical depression’ is that there <i>is</i> no reasonable cause - you feel depressed because of your brain chemistry, not because of your circumstances. You would feel depressed regardless of whether your life was good or bad, because it’s not a response to your life, it’s an aberrant behavior by the part of your brain that makes you feel feelings.<p>And to that end, to the contrary of what’s written in the article, trying to find a reason for your depression is a trap - one of your brain’s favorite things to do is to feel an emotion and then find a cause to pin it on. But if the cause is really just weird brain stuff - you risk false accusations or false positives when searching for the source of your depression. I must feel depressed because of my relationship. I must feel depressed because of climate change. I must feel depressed because my kid is away at college, because my car needs work, because I haven’t had sex for a while, etc.<p>All of those things may very well be problems in your life worth addressing - but are they actually the cause of your feelings of depression? Or is that just your brain doing stuff you don’t want it to do?