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Tuesday, 26 August 2025

Path dependency, when brought into the register of mental health, gives you a way to understand why depression and anxiety can become self-reinforcing conditions that persist even when circumstances change.

🧠 Path Dependency in Depression & Anxiety

1. Initial shocks or contingencies

A trauma, prolonged stress, loss, or early-life adversity can act as the initial event that “sets the path.”
Not everyone exposed develops depression or anxiety, but for some, the system gets tipped into a new trajectory.

2. Feedback loops / self-reinforcement

Once on that trajectory, certain processes reinforce it:
- Biological: stress hormones (cortisol), neural pathways of fear/rumination, sleep disruption.
- Psychological: negative self-schemas, avoidance behaviors, pessimistic expectations.
- Social: stigma, isolation, lost opportunities, economic fallout.
Each cycle makes it harder to exit — just as economic path dependency makes it harder to industrialize once stuck in commodity exports.

3. Lock-in

Over time, depression and anxiety can become “locked in” through habits of thought, neural rewiring, and social conditions (e.g., long-term unemployment or disability).
Even if the original trigger fades, the person may remain “stuck” in the depressive or anxious path.

4. Ecological context

Just like countries inherit colonial infrastructures, individuals inherit environments (family dynamics, socioeconomic position, cultural narratives) that predispose certain responses.
These inherited contexts shape what paths are even available for resilience or breakdown.

⚖️ Implications

Not just personal weakness: Path dependency reframes depression/anxiety as conditions embedded in historical and structural dynamics, not just individual “failings.”
Treatment as path-shifting: Interventions (therapy, medication, social support, income security) can be seen as ways of “bending the path” toward new equilibria.
Limits of reversal: Just as nations can’t easily “leapfrog” out of dependency, individuals may face constraints in fully reversing depression/anxiety once locked in — but incremental shifts can open new pathways.