[GuB-42]

Sounds like a catch 22 to me.

All of what you describe besides environmental stressors are symptoms of depression. So, to solve depression, you must first solve depression.

And even the environmental stressors are something we could work with as a society though welfare, environment regulations, etc... But how people react to them is also a symptom. There are depressive people with the best of situations, and people who enjoy life in the worst of situations. What often strikes me in documentaries about warzones, places of repression and extreme poverty or crippling diseases is how "normal" people seem to be, they enjoy themselves as if everything was fine. So, while reducing environmental stressors work, it is not the end of it.

The take may be that treating the symptoms of depression could work in treating the root cause, a positive feedback loop. But if done through lifestyle change, unfortunately, the treatment is coercion, you can't rely on the willpower of people who have none because of the disease.