ABSTRACT
Empirical research into depression provides data on demographics—how different population groups and locations fare in the depression stakes. It indicates possible causes of depression in generalised terms—childhood abuse, significant life events, etc. However, none of these statistics convey either the experience of depression or the sheer complexity of a life and how many possible causes interact to generate clinical depression. While the statistics may show that a certain percentage of those who have a major depressive episode go on to have second, third, and more relapses, they fail to reveal the systemic and relational aetiology and the dynamic process of a life punctuated by depressive illness. Thus, there is a real benefit in examining the firsthand descriptions of individual lives: what we lose in scale and rigour, we gain in concreteness, depth, and complexity, and we can generate fruitful hypotheses that might guide future population research.
