Depression has been defined as the process in which an individual experiences low self esteem and dejected. Depression occurs more often to any person in the world. Depression has been defined by many psychologists in time. Sigmund Freud is among the psychologist who contributed in describing what is the meaning of depression. Sigmund Freud is one of the most influential psychologists in the world who is described as the father of psychoanalysis. According to him, depression is the caused by early childhood experiences. He also states how the one losses their objective which in this case can be the death of a loved one or the break up from a person that one loves (Carhart-Harris). In this case, he states that the person also mourns the loss of the subjective, which is the loss of the object that they were attached to either in an unconscious manner or because of their ego is bruised or which feels bad for being rejected.
According the cognitive theory of depression formulated by Albert Ellis it states that the people who are depressed tend to have irrational beliefs about themselves (Dryden). The beliefs that they have is what causes them to have or make unqualified demands that they try to ensure that the demands are met no matter what. The depressed individuals according to Ellis are always looking on the negative and never on the positive things, they may or achieved in their lifetime.
Aaron Beck has described depression as the dysfunctional beliefs that people have that brings about the negative thoughts in their minds. According to Beck him beliefs that the more dysfunctional the person’s beliefs they have the more the negative thoughts will appear and thus the person will end up have severe case of depression. This is the reason why he formulated the Beck Depression inventory and the Beck Hopelessness Scale. The Beck depression inventory is one of the most commonly used tools that are used for the measurements of one’s depression in the world (Beck).
Martin Seligman did an experiment on a dog in order to see about helplessness. He was able to find the meaning of depression in the experiment in, which he states that depression in human beings causes them to be helpless. The meaning for this is that the individuals who are depressed usually have this sense of feeling that whatever they do in life will be pointless therefore they have no control over there surroundings.
The symptoms of major depression
One of the most common symptoms of major depression is when a person might have is the feeling of sheer helplessness and despair. The people who have the major depression usually have a hard time doing the basic work in that they may not be able to study, work, eat, sleep or converse with their friends. According to the statistics that have occurred it has shown how the depression might occur to people whose family has a history of depression while at times, it just occurs to anyone. The other symptoms that might occur are impaired concentration, overwhelming sadness, suicidal thoughts, weight loss, loss of appetite, fatigue and lack of pleasure from anything that occurs. According to the medical practitioners, they believe that the adults are more at risk of getting depression than the children. The women are also at a high risk of getting the depression simply because of the hormonal changes that occurs especially when they are pregnant or they have miscarriage.
Difference between Unipolar and bipolar
The major difference between the Unipolar and the bipolar depression is in the way the people are receive treatment and how they feel on the inside and the behaviors that might come out. The bipolar patients usually have high moods, which are the mania and also have the low moods due to depression. In Unipolar, the moods of the person are always low in that they never have any high moods in their state.
The causes of depression
There are many causes of depression but some of the main ones are genetics, loss of a loved one either through death or separation is also another cause of depression for the people. This is because the individual is usually filled with overwhelming sadness that sometimes they are unable to recover. There are past physical and emotional abuse that people undergo that causes them to have depressions in their adult life. People who have used the substance abuse are well known to have the clinical depression that sometimes makes them to use the drugs even more.
Conflicts within the family or when someone has some major personal conflict especially with regards to their bodies then they will have a problem with their lives thus forming depression (Alford). Serious illnesses such as cancer or HIV AIDS have caused many people to be depressed because they feel like they are going to die. In genetics, the depression has been passed one from family members. The fact that a family member who is proclaimed to have depression it always raises alarm on the individuals because the depression is known to be passed on from one family member to the next.
The relationship between depression and suicide
There is a connection between depression and suicide. The reason for stating this is because of the feel of helplessness that an individual feels in depression that causes the person to be suicidal. Depression can be claimed to be life-threatening disorder because of the erratic mood swings that’s person gets and the erratic behaviors that they get. This is the same as that of the people who have suicidal tendency. They are usually not happy; feel like everything is going wrong for them and life has no meaning (Schmidt).
Do you think that adolescent Depression is different from Adult Depression? And between male and female? – Cite research evidence.
According to the researches that have been conducted, it has been observed that the adult depression and the adolescent depression have some similarities but also observed that there are differences. When the adolescent are depressed it is easy to diagnose the depression. Wen the adults have depression many people do not easily know because it can go undetected. This causes many adults to go undiagnosed that they have depression. The depression for women is more common compared to the male. The reason for this is stated to be because of the hormonal imbalance especially when pregnant or menstruating (Heim).
The most effective treatment
It is very important for the person who has shown any signs of depression to seek medical checkup. Once the individual has been diagnosed to have depression then there are different forms of treatment that the individual will be given ranging from the type of depression that one has. The mild depression the doctor will advice the patient to do lots of exercise, seek therapy through the group therapy and wait and see what will happen after all that. Moderate depression the person will automatically be recommended to seek therapy. In the therapy, the individual will have a platform in which they will be able to state all the problems they might have and together with the therapist, they will find a way a better solution to the problem or find a way to cope with the problem (Alford).
When it comes to the severe case of depression then it is very important for the doctor to ensure that the patient is well looked after this means that the patient should be given the mental health teams. The doctor should prescribe the patient with the antidepressants tablets. This will help the patient to have good night rest and also will relax the patient. The next step that should be taken is that the medication should be supplemented with the therapy sessions. In the therapy sessions the patient will be given a platform where they will be able to discuss there problems openly. In the therapy sessions the therapist are supposed to use the cognitive behavioral therapy. In this kind of therapy, it focuses on the thoughts of the patients thus the therapist will be to know the problem of the patient and will find different ways in which they would be able to help the patient.
Discuss the various Psychoactive medications used to treat Depression, eg. Tricyclics, SSRIs and MAO Inhibitors.
There are various psychoactive medications that are been used t treat depression such as SSRIs, MAO and Tricyclics. These medications are good but there have been some indications that they are also causing dependency on the patients thus are causing them to be addicts. The medications are well known to be hypnotic and sedatives thus cause the patient to be high after using it (Nemade).
The procedure of ECT when treating depression
The ECT treatment is only used when other forms of medication has failed to help a person with clinical depression. This treatment is a form of technique of brain stimulation. This medication has proven to be very effective when it comes to the treatment of depression. The procedure of the ECT is that it starts by the patient being given a relaxer for the muscle and then is put on anesthesia where the patient is put in deep sleep. The next step that is taken is that the scalp is put the electrodes. After the electrodes has been put in the head the doctor will start controlling the electric current that will flow in the electrodes and the brain.
The current of the electricity will cause the patient to start seizure after every shock that has been administered (Schmidt). The patients are usually looked at by the doctors in the room in order to ensure that the electric shock is not overdone. Once the shock treatment has needed the patient always wakes up minutes after it has ended. When the anesthesia has worn off after the shock treatment, it has been observed that the patient seems to not remember what happened. The other thing that has also been observed is that the patient seems to be a little confused of the surroundings. According to the medical instructions, the shock treatments said to be done in a week three times for a period of four weeks.
Side effects of the shock treatment
There are some major side effects that can be found after using the shock treatment. Some of the major side effects that have been found are that the shock treatment will cause memory loss for the patient. The memory loss is called the retrograde amnesia. The other notable side effects of the drug is that it causes the patient to los attention and thus will not be able to concentrate on what is happening around them. There are some cases where he patient will be able to regain full consciousness after the shock treatment.
However, there are some cases where the patient will not be able to return to the person they once were in the past. There are some circumstances where the shock treatment has caused the patient to be confused. Confusion after the shock therapy is sometimes considered to be normal because of the loss of memory for a few periods. The problem comes in when the confusion continues to go on. The other problem that can be seen is that the patient may develop attention deficit disorder. Therefore, it is very important they are looked after by their relatives and doctors to ensure that the depression does not get worse due to lack of being listened to (Schmidt).
The effects of having social system and environment in alleviating the negative symptoms of depression
When the patients are seeking therapy, it is important for them to have a social supporting system that will encourage them to heal faster. The good supporting system will be good for the recovery and healing process for the patient (Lopes). The environment that the patient is living in should be changed especially if it is one of the reasons that cause the patient to be depressed. In a home where is a broken family it is important for them to change their dynamics in that if their children are depressed they should try and workout their problems in that when their children at home they resemble a normal happy family. The therapist should formulate working manual with the friends, family members of the patients in order for the patient to be able to get treatment even at home (Schmidt).
Does psychotherapy works
It has been proven by many psychologists that psychotherapy is one of the best methods of treating patients with depression. The reason for stating this is because of the different forms of psychotherapy that has proven to be effective in a number of ways. The cognitive behavioral therapy is stated to be among the best options of therapy for the patients with depression. The reason for this is because of the therapy tries to focus on the thoughts of the patient. When the thoughts of the patient has been looked at then the patient will be able to understand their problems easily through the help of the therapist thus will find new solutions that will help them in the future (Busch). The interpersonal therapy is also good because it concentrates on the relationships of the patients and what exactly is the problem with those relationships.
The effects and consequences of depression for Andrew
Andrew started having depression when he was in his thirties. He first noticed something was wrong when he wrote a novel that became successful but to him the achievements was nothing because he felt numb or nothing towards his achievement. When a party was done for his achievement, he felt sick being with his friends at the party. He began to be scared of everything in that he started to isolate himself and was too tired to even leave his house. He sought the help of his father where he got a lot of support from them. He went to live with his father and sometimes he was unable to leave his bed. When seeking therapy that is when he realized that his mother’s death three years earlier had contributed to his depression (Lopes).
Cite a personal depressive experience and indicate the outcomes of this experience
When I was sixteen, I had a normal life going to school. I had many friends but one morning I woke up feeling really tired. At first, I thought it was because I had stayed up most of the night chatting with my friends. I went to school as normal but I did not feel anything and was easily irritable. I was really rude to my friends the whole day and the whole week and sometimes, I did not want to talk to anyone even my family members. As the days went by, I started to lose interest in everything including my schoolwork this caused me to fail some of the tests that was conducted in the school. It reached a point where leaving my bed was hard and I began to loss interest in food. My friends began to be afraid to come near me therefore they left me alone. My parents become worried in that they took me to the hospital. That is when the doctors realized that I had depression. I was given a therapist with whom I was supposed to talk to. When in the psychologist room that is when I was able to see what caused me to have the depression. Two weeks before the depression began my dog died and I was really attached to the dog. I even realized that I could no longer look at a dog for more than five seconds. The therapy sessions helped me to get back to the person I was before and I was able to get some of my friends.
Work cited
Alford, Brad A. Depression: Causes and Treatment. Univ of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. Print
Beck, Aaron. Cognitive Therapy of depression. New York: Guilford Press, 1987. Print
Busch, Fredric N. Psychodynamic Treatment of Depression. American Psychiatric Pub, 2004. Print
Carhart-Harris, Robin L. Mourning and melancholia revisited: correspondences between principles of Freudian metapsychology and empirical findings in neuropsychiatry. Ann Gen Psychiatry, 2008. Print
Dryden, Joseph Yankura and Windy. Albert Ellis. Sage Publications, 1994. Print
Heim, Christine. The link between childhood trauma and depression: Insights from HPA axis studies in humans. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2008. Print
Lopes, Nuno. Depression: Out of the Shadows - 1ª parte: As Várias Faces da Depressão. 16 February 2011. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWFn8eRLqTM&index=1&list=PL85B6526C32DB15EE&spfreload=10>. Web
Nemade, Rashmi. Cognitive Theories of Major Depression - Ellis and Bandura. MentalHelp, 2007. Print
—. Cognitive Theories of Major Depression - Seligman. Pecan valley Centers for Behavioral and development health care, 2013. Print
Schmidt, Peter. Mood, Depression, and Reproductive Hormones in the Menopausal Transition. The American Journal of Medicine, 2005. Print
