The two most depressive people I ever met was Tony Hancock and Max Wall, both outstanding comedians of their time. Mind you the drama masks depict laughter and tears, shows the two moods are not far apart. In Cardiff they have devised a new method of treating depression, and it is based on DIY, you supply the patient with the books on treating depression on prescription. Strangely enough it actually works, a colleague of mine at the medical school where I work showed me some excellent outcomes. It must be working because all the GPs in Cardiff have adopted the scheme.

I have to say i was one of the "its all in your head" camp before the birth of my children, i struggled with baby one and with baby 2 i really struggled. Being a male i didnt obviously admit anything but looking back i suffered with and can recognise post natal depression (yes men get it) took me 6 mnths or so with my little lad and nearlly 9 nths with my little girl before i felt comfortable etc etc etc...

I think it's probably the other way round. I'd bet a lot of comedians, if not bipolar, tend to a depressive personality and use comedy, consciously or unconsciously as a defensive mechanism.

I can also easily understand how it may make matters worse, I've read often about the high of being on stage in front of an adoring audience and then the problem of trying to get down from the high, and I should imagine for a person with a tendency to depression this could get seriously bad, the memory of the temporary "fix" only making things worse.

The psychotherapist/comedienne Dr. Amy Alpine suggested in an article some time back that both depression and Bipolar disorder are common among comedians, and interestingly said that some comedians who were bipolar didn't want to be treated because they didn't want their "manic" episodes to go away.


I don't think it's just comedians though but more people who are extroverts, performers in general (Paul Gascoigne, anyone?) In 2007 actor and funny man Owen Wilson attempted suicide by slitting his wrists. Jim Carrey's life has reportedly been a story of battles with depression. Well known depressives that I know of include Woody Allen, Rodney Dangerfield, Rosie O'Donnell, Ruby Wax, Caroline Aherne, Catherine Tate, Paul Merton, Bill Oddy, Sarah Silverman, Russell Brand and Stephen Fry. Manic laughter and manic depression seem to be close relatives.

Mind you the problem of depression and mental illness in general is endemic to the human population and it's a pity, despite how widespread mental issues are, that there is still a stigma attached and people prefer to joke and put down. My dear old mum sadly had serious episodes of manic depression that we had to deal with and so I have more experience of it than I'd like, and it's probably why I've been a supporter of MIND for a long time. But I do think that attitudes have definitely appreciably changed for the better, even if there is a very long way to go.

Is depression a western illness, is it recorded in 'native' populations?

I think it is over-diagnosed and self-diagnosed and perpetuated in the West, and under diagnosed and/or ignored in the developing so-called Third World.

Almost all studies are based on Western countries and so far as I know the problem in other places would be that most cases would never even see a health professional much less be diagnosed, but I don't see any reason why actual depression, as a clinical illness, should occur any more or any less in any group of humans.

However, it may be that some forms of mental ill-health are [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_amokculture-specific[/url, or at least more prevalent in certain cultures. Without the research, it's difficult to say whether this would also be true of depression.