"Speaking from personal experience, the problem comes when people only treat the symptoms with anti-depressants, but don't dig further to deal with the underlying problems. Anti-depressants are wonderful drugs that have saved a lot of lives, but they only act as painkillers, they don't get to the root causes of the depression. That requires self-work, such as therapy, changes in lifestyle, and so on."This is not always the case. Sure, many people can successfully treat their depression through lifestyle changes and therapy, and those are of course the most preferred solutions since they don't have any side effects. For this reason, these things should always be tried first. However, not all cases of depression have root causes that are psychosocial in nature. With advances in the technology we use to look at the brain and with the help of longitudinal genetic studies, we're know acquiring a far better understanding of the biological basis for depression, and are now plainly seeing that some people are simply born with a brain that makes them prone to developing depression. For these people, entering therapy and striving to face their life troubles may not be enough. For these people, the root cause of their depression is a biological one, and psychopharmacological treatment is the best course of action in these cases.