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Depression the word has many terms, however the one we will focus on comes from the Latin word "deprimere" which means to press down. It was first applied to a mood condition by the ancient Greek doctor Hippocrates who lived in the fourth century who referred to it as "melancholia" or as we know it today as melancholy, in the new world dictionary melancholy is defined black bile, in medieval times considered to be one of the four humors of the body to come from the spleen or the kidneys and to cause gloominess, irritability and depression, another definition is defined sadness, sober musing and gloomy. Two thousand years ago Greeks believed the depression condition was due to the fact that people had to much black bile in their system, although melancholia is describe as black bile, studies have shown that black bile maybe contributed to the individuals moods rather than what was first believed by the ancient Greeks.

Over three hundred million people has or will have suffered from some form of this epidemic called depression! There is no definitive explanation why a person suffers with this illness or what causes it, it may be from several other illnesses that one may concur, or perhaps it may remain a mystery why one suffers from it, however we do know that many suffer. Through out history some of our greatest poets, artist, leaders and presidents were no stranger to this illness called depression! People like Beethoven, Van Gogh, Mark Twain, Winston Churchill and even our sixteenth president Abraham Lincoln all battled this illness.

Abraham Lincoln wrote " I am the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on earth. Whether I shall ever be better I cannot tell. I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible. I must die or be better it appears to me." Winston Churchill called his depression "The Black Dog." Whatever you may call it, it all derives from the same Greek word "anhedonia" meaning without pleasure.

Prescott Lecky psychologist and author of "Self Consistency a theory of personality" believed that ideas which seem to be consistent with the image that one holds in his or her mind about oneself are accepted as truth. Lecky performed many experiments to prove his theory, he was one of the first of his kind to study the self image. Lecky was also a school teacher which allowed him the opportunity to study thousands of his students and draw upon this

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