Depression: Understanding What It Is and Who It Affects

1294 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The causes and effects of depression

What is depression? Who are the groups affected by depression? How do people know when they are having signs, and/or symptoms of depression? Depression has numerous signs and symptoms, which means it comes in different shapes and sizes. No one individual is identical when it comes to feeling depressed. Depression is a mood disorder involving disturbances in emotion (excessive sadness), behavior (loss of interest in one’s usual activities), cognition (thoughts of hopelessness), and body function (fatigue and loss of appetite) (Wade, Tavris 567). Most people don’t even know when depression is happening to them. It usually takes friends, family, or even doctors to notice the symptoms of depression within somebody they know. People that are depressed have the tendency to describe their mood as gloomy, miserable, dreary or uneasy. A lot of victims of depression have additional feelings of worthlessness, doubt, emptiness, pointlessness, unreasonable guilt, boredom, despair, and weakness. A person that is severely depressed can have negative affects on the surrounding people in their life. If a person has knowledge of what type of depression they have, it will help administer their symptoms better and aid the doctors in performing the suitable treatments. Those without the knowledge of depression will sometime confuse it for sadness. Regular sadness is not identical to depression. Sadness is a response to disappointments, setbacks, and struggle that life brings, which is very typical. Unlike depression, sadness changes in an instead if a joyful moment shall appear. The different types of depression have its’ own unique causes, effects, and symptoms. One type of depression is called major depression. Major depression is the incapabi... ... middle of paper ... ... soon be the next largest killer following heart disease by the year 2020 and studies confirm depression is a contributing factor to deadly coronary illness. Depression is one of the most advanced problems and killers of our time. Works Cited Ainsworth, Patricia. Understanding Depression-Understanding Health and Sickness Series. Jackson, Miss.: University Press of Mississippi, 2000. Quinn Ph.D., Brain P. The Depression Source Book 2nd Edition. Los Angeles: Lowell House, 2000. Smith M.A., Melindanna, Joanna Saisan MSW and Jeanne Segal Ph.D. 6. June 2011. . Wade, Carole and Carol Tavris. Psychology Tenth Edition. New York: Prentice Hall Publishers, 2011. www.womenshealth.gov/statistics. (n.d). 21 June 2011. .

Show More
Related

  • The Effect of SSRI Medications on Our Humanity

    1866 Words  | 4 Pages

    Clinical depression, which affects about 10% of the adult population (Holtz, Stokes, 1138), is charact...

    Read More

  • Depression and Antidepressants

    2869 Words  | 6 Pages

    Through my extensive research on depression I have learned a lot of new things. I have learned about the many forms of depression and treatment for depression. I have also learned a little about what is believed to go on chemically in the brain of a clinically depressed person. I was also able to partially determine what sort of role genetics, chemicals and personal influences in the brain. Though I was unable to determine exactly how environmental and personal stress can cause a chemical imbalance in a person, I was even able to speculate about this issue and determine some theories of my own on why and how this may happen.

    Read More

  • Depressive Disorders

    1689 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Major depressive disorder is one of the most common mental disorders in the United States. Each year about 6.7% of U.S adults experience major depressive disorder. Women are 70 % more likely than men to experience depression during their lifetime” (“Depression”). “Depression is an important public-health problem and one of the leading causes of disease burden worldwide. Depression is often co-morbid with other chr...

    Read More

  • Final Synthesis Assignment

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    What is depression? We all have heard someone exclaim that they are depressed, or that something is depressing, but what does that really mean? Depression is a type of abnormal behavior, or mental illness, that is classified as a Mood Disorder. For this particular Mood Disorder, the person suffers from an “unrelenting lack of pleasure in life”(King, L. (2012). This means that the person may not find happiness in things that would typically make them happy and/or that they may have fatigue or energy loss. There are many other diagnosable symptoms as well, but Depression is not simply ‘depression’ there are actually different types of depressive disorders.

    Read More

  • The Hopelessness Theory of Depression

    1782 Words  | 4 Pages

    What is depression? According to the American Psychological Association (2014), “Depression is more than just sadness. People with depression may experience a lack of interest and pleasure in daily activities, significant weight loss or gain, insomnia or excessive sleeping, lack of energy, inability to concentrate, feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt and recurrent thoughts of death or suicide. Depression is the most common menta...

    Read More

  • Depression by Cognitive Perspective

    1213 Words  | 3 Pages

    Depression is a mental illness in which a person experiences deep, stable sadness and discontinued interest in nearly all activities. People also use the term depression to describe the temporary sadness, loneliness, or blues that everyone feels from time to time. In contrast to normal sadness, severe depression, also called major depression, can dramatically lessen a person’s ability to function in social situations and at work. People with major depression often have feelings of despair, hopelessness, and worthlessness, as well as thoughts of committing suicide.

    Read More

  • Women and Depression

    1047 Words  | 3 Pages

    National Institute of Mental Health. (2014). “Depression: What Every Woman Should Know”. Pub No. 95-3871.

    Read More

  • Depression In Canada

    847 Words  | 2 Pages

    Depression is a mental illness that negatively affects how one feels, thinks and behaves. Someone who is depressed may feel sad, hopeless, overwhelmed and have a little interest in things they used to enjoy. Depression is different from just being sad and you can't simply snap out of it. Someone experiencing depression deals with feelings of severe despair over a long period of time. It often requires long-term treatment to get better. Depression affects people in different ways. Some people may

    Read More

  • Depression in Teens

    889 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hyde, Margaret O., Forsyth, Elizabeth H. “Depression: What you need to know.” Franklin Watts, 2002

    Read More

  • Clinical Depression: An Internal Battle

    1198 Words  | 3 Pages

    Depression - also called “clinical depression” or a “depressive disorder”- is a disorder in which the patient feels the intense feeling of sadness or a negative feeling. It is a mood disorder. According to MayoClinic, “depression is a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest.”The distressing symptoms of depression affects how the patient thinks and feels. Depression blocks the person’s ability to do even the basic activities of daily life such as sleeping, eating and working. It affects both the mind and the body of the person. It is a very severe condition that at times even leads suicidal thoughts and ultimately

    Read More

  • Clinical Depression: A Case Study

    639 Words  | 2 Pages

    Depression can be assessed in several ways. For instance a friend may notice that someone maybe showing excessive sadness, the person feeling depressed might not even realize their own depressive symptoms. Depression can last several days or even weeks, or even over an extended period of time, this would be called clinical depression. Depression can affect the daily lives of many people. Extreme stress can trigger depression. Psychotherapy can help people realize and overcome psychological and interpersonal difficulty. Exercise can help alleviate depression, when unhappy thoughts take over happy thoughts. Exercise can act as a form of release and can be a distraction from everyday stresses. Difficulty sleeping, loss of appetite, difficulty being social, negative attitude, agitation, irritability, lethargic, feeling worthlessness, and even feeling guilty can be signs of depression. Being aware of the level of sadness a person experiences and questioning that level of sadness can be an effective way of diagnosing depression.

    Read More

  • Clinical Depression Research Paper

    546 Words  | 2 Pages

    Depression is a frequent and strenuous medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think, and the way how you act. Depression is a mood disorder, that strikes all ages, races, and genders. There are different types of depression, but we will be focusing on clinical depression and the effect it has on the development of humans and how depression is one of the most significant world epidemics. Depression symptoms can range from mild to severe which can include from just feeling sad to thoughts of suicide and death. To be diagnosis symptoms must last at least two weeks. Also, many medications have side effects that could cause the thought of suicide and depression.

    Read More

  • Depression: A Serious Mood Disorder

    447 Words  | 1 Pages

    The American Psychiatric Association considers depression abnormal only when it is out of scope to the event and continues past the mark at which most people begin to recover (Humphrey, J. A. 2012).Depression is nothing new, it has been a social problem throughout history, even in bible times (Furman, R. 2003). Depression is considered to so prevalent that it has been referred to as the "common cold" of mental illness however, unlike the common cold, depression can be fatal, and has been referred to as the world's number one public health problem (Humphrey, J. A., and Schmalleger, F. 2012 & Furman, R. and Bender, K. (2003).

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Depression

    1357 Words  | 3 Pages

    There are many people in the world who are struggling with the disease depression. Depression is the state in which a person feels very sad, hopeless and unimportant. The thing about depression is that it affects both genders and any ages. Depression is something that deserves full attention. For many reasons doctors believe that when a person has depression, they have to start taking medication for it as if medications help. People are becoming more dependent on antidepressants when there are other techniques for dealing with depression.

    Read More

  • The Effects of Depression

    822 Words  | 2 Pages

    Depression is one of the most common psychological problems. Each year over 17 million Americans experience a period of clinical depression. Thus, depression affects nearly everyone through personal experiences or through depression in a family member or friend.

    Read More

More about Depression: Understanding What It Is and Who It Affects

Open Document