relationship between depression and social ties
abstract
imagine having an illness that stripped away your identity, had the ability to impair or
destroy valuable relationships, and left you crippled with sadness and anxiety (canadian mental
health association [cmha], 2010b; public health agency of canada [phac], 2010b). it
would be overwhelming, to say the least. added to that is the fact that the rates of relapse are
high for this illness, and for some sufferers death is inevitable (beattie, pachana & franklin,
2010; cmha, 2010b; jhingan as cited by rajkumar, thangadurai, senthilkumar, gayathri,
prince & jacob, 2009). tragically, those who cannot cope with this illness may commit suicide,
if they do not die from related physical causes (alexopoulos, 2005; beattie et al., 2010; bephage,
2005; chew-graham, 2010; cmha, 2010b; gilmour, 2010; golden, conroy, bruce, denihan,
greene, kirby, et al., 2009). the name of this illness? depression.
depression is an elusive mental illness. three million canadians will experience
depression in their lifetime from various causes (cmha, 2010b). but, there is no single cause
for this condition. researchers indicate that chemical imbalances in the brain, medications,
physical conditions, psychosocial and socio-economical factors may be among the potential
causes of depression (alexopoulos, 2005; beattie et al., 2010; butcher & mcgonigal-keimey as
cited by costa, 2006; chew-graham, 2010; cicirelli, 2009; cyr, 2007; grundy, 2006; phac,
2010c; yohannes & baldwin, 2008).