Why Do Humans Get Depression? What Really Is Depression? (Understanding Depression Through Grief)

An exploration of depression through the lens of Jaak Panksepp's affective neuroscience and separation distress.

Why do humans get depression, what really is depression, and how can we understand depression through separation distress? 💡Anti-depressant Course: psycho.farm/antidepressant-course 📖 PsychoFarm's Treating Depression Book: a.co/d/3M0uFui ================ Follow PsychoFarm: 🔴SUBSCRIBE ► youtube.com/c/Psychofarm?sub_confirmation=1 🧠Mental Health Resources: psycho.farm/services-4 ➡️Instagram: instagram.com/thepsychofarm/ ➡️Tiktok: tiktok.com/@thepsychofarm ➡️Twitter: twitter.com/ThePsychoFARM ================ The video explores why humans get depression and how Jaak Panksepp's affective neuroscience can enhance our understanding of it by examining the grief and seeking systems. It starts by explaining the grief system, rooted in John Bowlby's attachment theory. Human infants, unlike other animals, are born highly dependent on caregivers for survival. Bowlby identified four components of the attachment system: proximity maintenance, safe haven, secure base, and separation distress. Panksepp's grief system activates during separation distress, causing emotional pain and anxiety, which serve to motivate the infant to reunite with the caregiver. Distress vocalizations, a key feature of the grief system, have adaptive value, signaling the caregiver to return and ensuring the infant's survival. The grief system has two facets: it causes misery and emotional pain when activated but brings comfort and security when the distress is alleviated through reunion. The seeking system, associated with the brain's reward pathway, drives curiosity and exploration, counteracting negative emotions. It's linked to the mesolimbic dopamine pathway and is activated by stimuli like coffee and stimulants. This system motivates animals, including humans, to engage with their environment and seek resources, providing positive emotions that suppress negative ones. Panksepp observed that what really is depression, characterized by symptoms like a depressed mood and anhedonia (loss of interest or pleasure), mirrors the transition from the protest phase to the despair phase in infants. During prolonged separation, the grief system's continuous activation leads to the shutdown of the seeking system, resulting in apathy and withdrawal. This mechanism, designed to terminate separation distress, can lead to a depressive state when the seeking system is downregulated, impairing the ability to experience pleasure. The video concludes by linking depression to symbolic losses and separations in adulthood, such as losing a job or moving, which can activate the grief system. Understanding this interplay helps explain depression as a syndrome involving the downregulation of the seeking system due to sustained grief system activation, helping us better understand depression.