In recent years, when making an appointment with a psychologist, when asked about the reason for contacting, we often hear the word depression in response. Accordingly, the psychologist forms a certain idea about how the patient will behave at the appointment, and how the psychologist should behave in this situation. fortunately or not, I find it difficult to answer here, but in most cases an upset(!) person comes to the appointment and quite emotionally describes his problems: the boss is annoying, the wife wants something, the children require attention, the dog is sick, and so on, and in the background Because of all this, he developed depression, life was boring and not nice to him. The psychologist, of course, will listen and try as much as possible to help the person who asked for help cope with the situation. But with such a presentation of the case, we are not talking about depression, but, most likely, about a depressive state. In fact, it is very good that the person turned to a specialist, he will receive timely help, and his depressive state (if he is prone to them) will eventually will not turn into depression. In this article I would like to write about what depression is, how it forms, how it proceeds and what consequences it has for the human psyche, which specialists need to be contacted. Depression (from the Latin deprimo - “to press”, “to suppress”) - refers to mental disorders (ICD-10 F-32, F-33), which are characterized by decreased mood, a complete absence of a state of joy (anhedonia) and a violation of negative thinking side (a pessimistic mood towards everything that is happening). At the physiological level, motor activity sharply decreases; a person may not change his posture or move his gaze from one point for hours. As for self-esteem, with depression it is greatly underestimated, interest in even the most favorite activities disappears, often a person stops taking complete care of his appearance, appetite disappears, and suicidal thoughts appear. Today there is an assumption that women are more prone to depression. I think that men by nature are less likely to seek help, they more often become dependent on chemicals. Adolescents are also prone to depression, and you need to be especially careful with them; the need to be independent in adolescence borders on unconsciously harming one’s own health. A large percentage of depression is observed among retired people who lived only by work, do not have hobbies or are not in demand in other social contacts. It is generally accepted that depression is a disease of modern society caused by the absence or insufficient amount of face-to-face communication. Actually this is not true. Hippocrates in his works described a condition similar to depression and called it melancholy. The techniques used by Hippocrates to treat melancholy are similar to those used in the medical and psychological treatment of depression. With exogenous depression, the causes are external factors. These include the loss of a loved one or significant person, an acute divorce, loss of social status, financial difficulties and other stressful conditions caused by psychosocial factors. Endogenous depression refers to the type of depression in which somatic causes are present. The causes of endogenous depression lie in the lack of joy hormones necessary for the body: serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. In cases where the endocrine system produces an insufficient amount of them, a person feels depressed, apathy, fatigue, lack of appetite, and in women the menstrual cycle is disrupted. Those people who have cases of endogenous depression among their relatives and some other mental illnesses. Also at risk are people who are too emotionally sensitive. With traumatic brain injuries, there is also a possibility of developing endogenous depression due to damage to certain areas of the cerebral cortex. Endogenous!