Depression

What is depression?

Feeling sad, or what we may call "depressed", happens to all of us. The sensation usually passes after a while. However, people with a depressive disorder - clinical depression - find that their state interferes with daily life.

For people with clinical depression, their normal functioning is undermined to such an extent that both they and those who care about them are affected by it.

Melancholia - clinical depression is a fairly modern term. Hippocrates, known as the father of Western medicine, described a syndrome of "melancholia". He said melancholia was a distinct disease with specific physical and mental symptoms. Hippocrates characterized it as "(all) fears and despondencies, if they last a long time" as being symptomatic of the illness.