Depression in Post-Pubescent Females

Biological and Hormonal Changes

Biological sensitivity to hormonal fluctuations is also one of the key factors that predispose females in the period after puberty to high levels of depression. According to Chapter 10 of the Abnormal Child Psychology, the prevalence of depression is a sex-selective developmental trend during the time of puberty, as girls are more vulnerable (Mash & Wolfe, 2019). Estradiol and progesterone have effects on serotonergic and dopaminergic systems, and they have an impact on the regulation of mood and stress responsiveness. Indicatively, Vijayakumar et al. (2021) have shown that pubertal hormones correlate with fast-tracked subcortical development of affective processing regions, and Luo et al. (2024) have shown that estradiol levels are consistently predictive of the internalising symptoms in adolescents in multiple multifaceted studies. The results obtained suggest that neuroendocrine processes directly influence neural networks, which makes more females predisposed to depression.

Sociocultural Stressors and Gender Roles

The second cause is the sociocultural stress related to gender roles and gender expectations. According to Mash and Wolfe (2019), adolescent girls ruminate more, are more prone to rejection, and suffer more interpersonal stress than boys. Over the years, longitudinal studies have shown that depressive symptoms among girls indicate bullying and other experiences in their lives that are stressful than among boys (Morken et al., 2023). Another social media issue that brings stress and plays a highly significant role as a predictor of depressive symptoms and social anxiety in the early adolescence phase is body-image dissatisfaction (Charmaraman et al., 2021). The latter can be explained by the fact that Lilly et al. (2023) have concluded that females are more likely to experience recurrent and negative thinking as a factor in the support and maintenance of depressed conditions, including rumination.

Treatment Implications

Even though CBT and IPT are practical and evidence-based practices that can assist both male and female patients, gender-specific changes can be used to enhance their effectiveness. One of such interventions is the interpersonal psychotherapy-adolescent skills training, which is directly aimed at dealing with the relationship-related stressors that are especially likely to occur in girls and which have been demonstrated to decrease the level of depressive symptoms (Zheng et al., 2023). One can add such tailor-made modules to the standard interventions to provide the answer to the question of vulnerability of women, to give a more specific answer to the biological and sociocultural processes that cause the vulnerability of women.