Psychological Disorder Analysis
Marla is suffering from Major Depression or otherwise known as Clinical Depression. This condition is characterized by changes in thinking, general mood, reaction to the surrounding environment and physical wellbeing. Major depression patients exhibit negative thoughts about themselves, low moods, lack of motivation towards work and other activities and physical discomfort, which can expresses as headache or other general bodily aches (Comer, 2007). Her symptoms are best explained by substantial depression whose occurrence is common.
Major depression is a psychological disorder, which is said to affect about 6.7% of the American population of 18 years and above. Data from the National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 20%- 25% of adults will suffer from an episode of serious depression at one point in their life (Comer, 2007). The sad fact is that a majority of these cases will go untreated. This condition affects adults, teenager and in some case, children.
Major depression is also more prevalent in women than men are. This has been attributed to the numerous hormonal changes, which women have to go through in the course of their lives. Stages of life such as puberty, the beginning of menstruation, pregnancy and menopause all come with major hormonal changes to the body. These have been found to increase the risk of developing clinical depression for women. Other factors that increase the risk of occurrence are the pressures of daily life (Barry, et al, 2012). Some women have to balance the pressures of a demanding career with the challenges of raising a family. Women who are single parents have the additional role of being the breadwinner and filling in the roles of a father. All this significantly increase the risk of developing clinical depression.
During all her bout bouts of depression, she always felt detached from the world and could not find a reason to be happy. After the birth of her baby in high school, she could not bring herself to be excited about her son who is now due to attend college. She also reported that her sleep pattern changed. At times, she could not get out of bed while at other times; she could not get any sleep. She stayed in bed when her husband died but cannot sleep now that she is worried about her financial problems. When her husband died, she became disillusioned with life, felt despair and even thought of killing herself. These suicidal thoughts stopped when she remembered her 3 children and realized they would be more desperate than they already were. She sought grief counseling and got help from family through the grieving and burial period. She no longer has suicidal thoughts and is now afraid dying and leaving her children alone.
Marla has been on several antidepressants before. They helped her feel better. She a doctor recommended ECT once before, but she declined to have the procedure done opting to take medication instead (Comer, 2007). Some of the drugs made her feel nauseous and experience headaches, but after 6 weeks, she always felt much better and could go on with her normal life.
A typical day in her life starts at 6.00 am when she wakes up and prepares her children for school before going to work. Since her last bout of depression started, she is always up by 3.00am and cannot go back to sleep. She often wakes up and goes to watch television until it is time to prepare breakfast for the children. Work starts at 9.00am and ends at 5.00pm. By 3.00pm she usually tired and anxious to leave (Comer, 2007). This has affected her performance at work. On numerous occasions since her husband got sick, her boss has complained of the errors in her work and her inability to meet deadlines.
After work, Marla immerses herself in household chores and helping her 2 younger children with homework. Sometimes her older son helps, but he has become withdrawn of late. This is another cause of worry for her. To relax, she prefers to read a book although she has realized that she can hardly concentrate past two pages. She tried walking the family dog once but found it more depressing than calming. Her husband used to walk the dog while jogging. Using the same route made her sadder.
Marla is currently more concerned about the welfare of her children than any other thing. Consequently, her job and personal health is suffering in the process. Her son’s college fee is her biggest worry, and it keeps her up all night. Her son is doing well in school and has been accepted to several colleges. The money they had up aside for his education was used up during her husband’s 6-month period of hospitalization in the High Dependency Unit of the local hospital. Since his accident happened at work, his company was to compensate the family but insurance is taking too long to pay her. She is now worried that her son will become a failure because of her inability to afford his college education. Her son’s recent withdrawal is increasing her anxiety. She is worried that he might begin to think of her as a failure and decide to leave home to pursue his own dreams. She has not shared any of these concerns with her son. She is considering talking to her sister and brother about all that she has been going through. She hopes to get her brother who is her son’s favorite uncle to talk to her son and find out why he has become withdrawn.
Major Depression is usually triggered by major events in a person’s life, which cause them to experience major negative emotions such as sadness, fear or despair (Barry, et al, 2012; Wolfe, et al, 2009). This causes the individual to change how they feel about themselves; experience physical manifestations of their discomfort and in some instances develop suicidal thoughts.
Several possible have been given for the causes of Major Depression. These reasons range from biological reasons such as genetics to environmental factors, which affect a person’s life. Some scientists hypothesize that some individuals are predisposed to develop depression because they inherited faulty genes from their ancestors who possibly suffered from depression (Wolfe, et al, 2009). This hypothesis has no supporting evidence and therefore cannot be relied on to explain the causes or depression. However, it explains why occurrence of depression can be common within a family. Extensive clinical tests found that individuals with major depression had few or insensitive serotonin and norepinephrine, which are neurotransmitters, found in the nerves, which transmit information to the brain.
Depression can also be caused by faults in an individual’s cognitive pattern. Due to factors surrounding a person from childhood to adulthood, some people develop harmful styles of analyzing situations around them and always end up arriving at harmful self-destructing conclusions. With time, these individuals easily develop depression because they are always judging themselves harshly. Other causes of depression are tragic or unexpected occurrences in life. Death of a loved one, divorce, break up, loss of employment or diagnosis with a terminal conditions are some of the life situations that can drive on to depression
Marla’s history shows a series of experiences, which have repeatedly driven her to depression. At a very tender age, she experienced postpartum depression and felt like a failure in the eyes of her family. Later in life, she had to nurse her husband and face despair before losing him and having to grieve his loss. She is currently dealing with financial problems brought about by the tragedy. All these circumstances coupled with the fact that she could be going through early stages of menopause make her susceptible to major depression. Marla’s could have been caused by a combination of biological factors (menopause hormonal changes), psychological and negative events in her life.
Cognitive therapy is a model of treatment used to help patients repair their faulty way of looking at situations. This model of therapy, which is an offshoot of the behavioural model, was developed by Aaron Becks renowned psychologist. This model helps clients to recognize patterns of negative thought, guides them in correcting their errors in logic, and eventually helps them to develop new and better ways of thinking about their lives (Karen, Graham, Hagen, & Janet, 2005).
This therapy will help Marla to realize that she is not a failure and that her inability to raise her son’s college fees is not her fault. She will also learn to accept the death of her and the new responsibilities of a single parent that she has to undertake. This will help her to deal better with challenges such as her son’s withdrawal without feeling as she is already failing. It will also help her to acknowledge that at some point, she will need to ask for help from friends and family to get through the difficult periods. Finally, the therapy will help her accept that life is full of challenges and that despite our best efforts and good intentions, things do not go as we plan.
This therapy can be administered with anti-depressants to help improve her mood. She could also get a prescription of sleeping pills to help her sleep and establish a healthy sleeping pattern. To control her from continually feeling “jumpy” she could also get mild antianxiety medication to help her remain calm. She should continue with cognitive therapy until she improves her cognitive skill and has a better outlook to life.
Reference List
Barry, L., C. et al (2012). “Under-Treatment of Depression in older persons”. Journal of
Affective Disorders, 136 (3), 789-796
Comer, R. J. (2007). Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology. Worth Publishers
Karen, P., Graham, K., Hagen, R. & Janet, R. (2005). Yoga for depression: The research evidence. Journal of Affective Disorders 89, 13-24
Wolfe, E. et al (2009) "Assessing the Impact on Patient Health of Attending a Day
Treatment Programme for Eating Disorders", Mental Health Review Journal, 14
(1):12 – 19
