epression and age for all groups. Among women in general, the age of greatest risk for depression is about 40, but there is another period of high risk as women reach 55. That bimodal pattern contrasts with the pattern for men, among whom the risk of depression simply increases as a direct function of age. Whereas young women are at fairly high risk of depression, young men are not, relative to their risk later in life. Interestingly, there is no apparent peak in the rate of depression among women in the menopausal years (Mahendra, 1987).
There appears to be a reliable connection between depression as it affects women and certain social and economic factors. Some forms of depression occur, for example, at higher rates among working class women with children than among women of higher social classes and women with no children. In general, membership in a lower social class and having been divorced both place a woman at risk for depression (Mahendra, 1987). Poverty and the threat of economic insecurity probably play some role in the etiology of depression (Chaisson Stewart, 1985).
Throughout history physicians and others have suspected that depression is related to somatic processes (Blazer, 1982). "Melancholia," the name by which depression often went until recent times refers literally to the "black bile" believed to cause it. Modern research in medicine and physiology has demonstrated links between depression and chemical reactions within the nervous system. It is presently an open question whether somatic conditions actually cause depression, predispose individuals to depression, or are actually involved in the etiology of depression in any meaningful way.
Perhaps because of its importance as a form of mental illness, depression has received attention from a large number of perspectives. It is at once a social and psychological phenomenon and an important element in the history of modern psychother...