This study aims to understand the meaning of the lived experience of depression in Brazil, Chile, and the United States, focusing on possible cultural variations that could contribute to its cross-cultural understanding. Between 2001 and 2004, 72 adults with either depression or with clinical records of depression (n=30 in Fortaleza, n=22 in Santiago, n= 20 in Boston) had been submitted to phenomenological interviews which investigated the description of the depression lived experience. The results show that, though there is no variation in a symptomatology among the three countries, the lived experience associated with these symptoms varies according to different cultural subjective processes that are characteristic of each culture. In conclusion, contemporary lifestyles, along with some cultural changes, including economic and psychosocial oppression, contribute to the appearance and maintenance of depression.