Effects of Depression on Social Support in a Community Sample of Women

Abstract

Depression has long been noted by clinicians to have an important impact on their patients' relationships with spouse, family, and friends. Thus a clinical literature dating back at least 40 years has vividly described how depressed persons "make their whole environment feel guilty" (Coyne, 1976, p. 186), provoking others to withdraw support at a time when the depressed individual most needs it (Jacobson, 1954; Kraines, 1957). Similarly, the impact of depression and other psychiatric disorders on social relationships was explicitly recognized in an official position statement of the American Psychological Association, in which Smith and Hobbs (1966) eloquently stated that "mental disorder is not the private misery of an individual; it often grows out of and usually contributes to the breakdown of normal sources of social support and understanding, especially the family" (p. 500, italics added).