In 1978, prevalence began to rise slowly, and then in 2000 more rapidly, leveling out again around 2008 at a historically-high level.
I think it’s interesting to consider how those trends might correlate with rising numbers of people identifying as non-religious.
Regardless of whether changes in religion caused an increase in depression, I think it’s certainly possible that it influenced how people might have felt writing about their life and experience.
Speaking as someone raised in a fundamentally religious setting, there’s often a certain kind of guilt associated with expressing negativity about oneself or ones life. No matter how bad you feel about yourself, definitively calling yourself a “loser” would be an affront to the creator.
A lot of those typologies of cognitive distortions would be read as vain/worldly/unfaithful towards a divine plan. People might be experiencing all of that internally, but interpreting it as a spiritual failing to be expressed through spiritual language, if at all.
I think it’s interesting to consider how those trends might correlate with rising numbers of people identifying as non-religious.
Regardless of whether changes in religion caused an increase in depression, I think it’s certainly possible that it influenced how people might have felt writing about their life and experience.
Speaking as someone raised in a fundamentally religious setting, there’s often a certain kind of guilt associated with expressing negativity about oneself or ones life. No matter how bad you feel about yourself, definitively calling yourself a “loser” would be an affront to the creator.
A lot of those typologies of cognitive distortions would be read as vain/worldly/unfaithful towards a divine plan. People might be experiencing all of that internally, but interpreting it as a spiritual failing to be expressed through spiritual language, if at all.