"If you're pretty crazy then you're in good company because the human race as a whole is out of its goddam head." Albert Ellis - founder of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) and pioneer in the development of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT).

Three hundred million people world wide live with depression. The Black Dog. The Dark Storm. The Tar Pit. The Black Hole. But what is depression and what causes it? Read on to learn the opinions of several mental health clinicians in this first of our The Psychology of It series on depression.

In early September, 2016, we discovered by chance a Facebook post by Christopher Sewell describing in raw detail, his first-hand struggle living with anxiety and depression. Christopher is a husband and a father and a surfer and a mate who is not defined by his disorders. Instead, he is brave and generous and shares this incredible insight into his experiences.

I first met Lisbeth several years ago in The Literary Kitchen where we were both writing students of American author, Ariel Gore. We reunited two weeks ago back in the Kitchen in a Personal Essay Intensive class. This very personal essay about Lisbeth's experiences living with and managing bipolar affective disorder and symptoms of psychosis lept from the computer at me and I begged her to share it with us at The Psychology of It. We're so grateful she did.

Sandra Bucci is of Swiss-Italian heritage and a Novacastrian now residing in Manchester, U.K., with her husband and two beautiful children. She is a Dr of Clinical Psychology and an academic at The University of Manchester; her academic interests lie in understanding the development and maintenance of psychotic experiences such as hearing voices and having unusual beliefs. She is motivated to develop novel ways to help people have better access to mental health support and intervention. Sandra is a world citizen who has travelled extensively. She is a former competitive aerobics champion, tennis player and doesn't particularly like being in a field of cows (one might go so far as to say she has a bovine phobia!).