Through observation and personal experience, I&#x27;ve come to the conclusion that the majority of depression has its basis in physical conditions -- the state of (the rest of) one&#x27;s body, and&#x2F;or of one&#x27;s environment.  And really, environmental causes become intractable when they produce corresponding physical changes in the subject.  (Including, but not only, the brain.)<p>So, until physical health and environment become center stage, &quot;the problem&quot; of depression will continue, with at best various palliative treatments -- too often touted as &quot;the cure&quot; -- slapped on to ameliorate, or bury, some measure of the symptoms including &quot;depression&quot;.<p>I&#x27;m not saying this is 100% the case.  But I&#x27;ve seen too much of the extreme opposite end, where diagnosis and treatment are rather divorced from the physical circumstances.<p>Even these days, the &quot;industry&quot; seems to be heavily populated with... [oh, redacted, I guess].<p>P.S.  Regarding psilocybin, which the OP endeavor is apparently focusing on, perhaps again my experience is an anomaly, but many of my drug-taking friends from my younger years seem to have ended up happier and more &quot;successful&quot;, in a personal sense, in life.<p>Having been more than sufficiently scared&#x2F;indoctrinated in my early years, I avoided drugs.  Looking around me, I now more than occasionally regret that.  Maybe a little self-medication and experimentation would have led to some different choices at critical junctures that I now see, in retrospect.<p>Granted, drugs do destroy some people.  And, given current circumstances, societies.  I don&#x27;t mean to make light of that.<p>But the often hypocritical, &quot;just say no&quot; fear-based inter-generational culture that has predominated in my part of the world, with respect to this topic?  Not productive.<p>Hell, aside from the personal side, we&#x27;ve lost -- delayed for decades -- research into psilocybin and marijuana, that earlier showed signs of promise and now are proving to be quick fruitful areas of pharmacological development.<p>P.P.S. Maybe this is the wrong message to share.  And even with my current wondering, I have -- retrospectively, I guess -- no desire to become, or have become, a habitual user.<p>My primary point, I guess, must return to the personal and the anecdotal.  I&#x27;ve had my ups and downs, but I always used to bounce back -- until some physical injuries led to chronic discomfort and limitations on my activities.  That marked the start of extended dark times, and a gradual but relentless downward spiral including further, reinforcing physical health developments.<p>Guard your health!  Your first and best line of defense -- or offense, to put it perhaps in a less fearful term.<p>That includes guarding it by using it for positive experiences. They tend to be self-reinforcing -- just as the negative are, in the opposite direction.