Sapolsky on Depression

Here we have an excellent video from Stanford University in which Professor Robert Sapolsky lectures on the biology and psychology of depression. He argues that major depression is the most severe of diseases afflicting mankind. He examines its causality, rooting major depression in biology (genes, hormones and neuro-transmitters) and psychology (referring to Freud's Mourning and Melencholia and Seligman's work on learned helplessness), He concludes that stress is a trigger for depression, with those of us genetically vulnerable particularly susceptible to depression, initially as a reaction to significant life events and trauma and then as part of a cycling depressive disorder.