The European Commission Green Paper on Mental Health (European Commission, 2005) suggests that factors such as biological, individual, familial, social, economic and environmental all contribute to determining a person's mental state. person. Similarly, Kinderman, Schwannauer, Pontin, and Tai (2013) stated that it is never a single factor that leads to the discovery of mental illness in an individual. Therefore, this essay will examine factors such as genetics, experiences, social support, social status, and living conditions and how they might affect a depressed person. Depression causes depressed mood and loss of pleasure in most activities. A person's thoughts, emotions, body, and behavior are all affected. It's like chronic sadness, a person never really feels happy about themselves and these symptoms are present most of the time. There are many types, including minor, dysthymic, subsyndromal and major. Depression is the fourth leading cause of disability and illness and affects 121 million people worldwide (Bromet et al, 2011). One factor that has dominated in recent years is the biological approach, suggesting that it is a person's genes that lead to symptoms of depression. One theory that has contributed to this is the monoamine hypothesis. This suggests that there are three main monoamine neurotransmitters, including dopamine, serotonin, and norephrenine, that cause depression. Specifically, low levels of serotonin. Serotonin helps regulate mood and balances areas of the brain associated with thought and emotion. Serotonin pathways connect to different regions of the brain and are located in the brainstem area “the Raphe nuclei”. They affect areas of the brain including the neocortex and the limbic system (e.g. middle of article......personal experiences, social support, social status and living conditions all have an influence on the onset of depression This ultimately supports the European Commission's Green Paper on mental health (European Commission, 2005: p.4) which states that "the mental state of people is determined by a multiplicity of factors ...'. For each factor, there are a number of explanatory models describing how an individual could potentially become depressed, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Although these factors contribute to the development of depression, research suggests that. There is no single explanation for depression. Furthermore, the research implied that future research should bring all of these models together to provide an explanation for depression, as they have all been shown to interact with each other. the others anyway..