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The cause and effects of depression
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Psychological causes and effects of depression pdf
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Environmental Causes of Depression To begin on the causes of depression, environmental causes of depression are concerned with factors that are outside of ourselves. These factors include long-term stress at home or work, coping with the loss of a loved one, or traumatic events. Stress is a major cause of depression. Events such as the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, or the end of a relationship are negative but also traumatic and cause great stress for many people (All About Depression: Environmental Causes). Stress can also occur because of a more positive event like getting married, moving to a new city, or starting a new job. Sometimes people become depressed even when there is nothing to worry about. For those who struggle with …show more content…
more chronic depression, the effect of stress is more complicated. The "kindling effect" is a theory that states that the first few depression episodes causes changes in the brain's chemistry and limbic system which makes it more likely that there will be worse depressive episodes in the future (All About Depression: Environmental Causes). It is like a positive feedback loop where the episodes cause more physiological harm which results in a worse depressive episode and so on. Biological and environmental factors work together in this.
"Learned helplessness" is when people experience long term constant stress. The people that go through this feel helpless in their situation and don’t exactly know how to get out of it. The person feels that he/she has no control over their situation whatsoever causing him/her to emotionally break. People that suffer through this think negatively about their abilities, because events that did not succeed in the past brought their self-confidence down. Traumatic Events are other important causes of depression (All about Depression: Environmental Causes). Examples would be the death of a loved one, divorce, a medical illness, or losing property because of a natural occurrence. These situations cause a person to feel like they have no control over their like and gives them even more grief because of that fact. Everyone reacts to harsh events differently, so one person may take it more lightly or greatly than another individual. For instance, when a man’s wife passes away, he is more likely to suffer from depression than if a woman’s husband passes away. This is due to the fact that the loss of a wife for a husband also means additional losses, like household care, family support, and other responsibilities
that wives take into their own hands. He might lose touch with his kids and other family members. If he doesn’t reach out to others in his time of trough he may even become more troubled and alone. Ladies, when they lose their husbands, tend to reach out for help and emotional stability. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a factor that is involved in the development of depression (Gabbey). Childhood difficulties are a big deal when connected back to the cause of an individual that has depression. For instance physical abuse, a violent childhood, loss of a parent, or mental problems in a parent can be extremely harmful for an individual emotionally. A bad childhood may cause an initiation of depression, maybe around the age of 20. After that period of time, an individual has a much more difficult time adjusting to growing up, like the “teen” period and adulthood, than other people. This may cause even more stress on a person. The individual eventually loses confidence in him/her, which eventually causes them to reach other to others and be more dependent on them rather learning to cope with his/her struggles alone. Primary experiences may disturb the growth of the limbic system. There could be a problem in a person’s capability to adjust to different settings and control emotions if the individual does through enough pain and emotional mayhem. (All About Depression: Environmental Causes). Biological and environmental factors work together. Case study Leanne, the patient, is 31 years old (Mckeon). Her household circumstance is “less than ideal.” She broke apart from her husband two years ago and eventually wasn’t able to meet her financial responsibilities of the mortgage and other bills that both her husband and her used to take care of. Leanne did not have a job for 1 year because she was fired from her previous job. Eventually, as she was unable to financially support herself, she sold her house and moved in with her boyfriend, whose house was “too small to accommodate her belongings”. This forced her to stock her personal belongings in a camp tent in the backyard. She felt as if she were “walking on eggshells” around her boyfriend constantly. She is only staying at his house until she gets her Master’s degree. She says her boyfriend makes her feel like she is always intruding in the house and feels like a guest in her own living area. In addition the living problems, her job isn’t paying her enough to be independent. She feels as though her job is not keeping her excited and it is easy. She feels like she is just “wasting her days there and not trying to excel.” Her diagnosis states that she is suffering through problems with “educational issues, social environment problems, occupational problems, housing problems, economic problems and legal issues”. They are all environmental issues. In addition to her issues at the moment, she also had childhood problems. When she was 13, she attempted suicide because she felt alone. Her parents were verbally abusive. She said that they would always yell at her but never help or guide her in fixing her behavior. They never helped her get onto the right track. This probably impeded on her ability to manage in the real world as quickly as other individuals who were taught right from wrong, manners, and had a good education system. Her failure of her marriage, her current position at work, the loss of her home and the unhappy living situation she is currently in seem to be part of the problems she faces as a result of the social and emotional problems she faced as a child due to her family situation, which caused her to escalate in her depression and develop new harmful symptoms (Mckeon). Analysis Finally, to sum up the environmental causes of depression, for both genders it is most common in those who are 25-44 years of age, and least common for those over the age of 65 (All about Depression: Diagnosis). Environmental causes such as stress may be affecting younger people since elder people don’t have as much stress to deal with. Environmental factors work hand in hand with biological factors in order to make depression worse than it already is. Normal day problems can happen to anyone but some people tend to take it worse depending on childhood difficulties or biological balances. Environmental cause seems to be the main factor that triggers depression.
When a person experiences something traumatic it can cause so much stress that even afterwards that
Depression is considered a mental disorder that can lead an individual to commit suicide, experiment fatal risk that can injure his or her life. Furthermore, an individual feeling depressed lacks motivation to do anything progressive with his or her life. With that said, these individuals sometime gives up interest in activities that were once enjoyable, gets in a phase were he or she loses appetite, begins to overeat, loses concentration on what he or she is trying to complete, and becomes indecisiveness. Moreover, depression is a condition that makes an individual feel miserable, have no motivation to any activity that can influence his or her views, actions, welfare. Furthermore, depressed individuals at times may feel sad, apprehensive, desperate, destitute, useless, awkward, short-tempered, and agitated. In addition, the melancholy of depression is categorized by a greater concentration and length that is attached to severe symptoms. According to Wedding & Corsini (2014) states, “Physical disease, severe and acute stress, and chronic stress area also precipitating factors” (Pp. 240) of an individu...
If you do not fit into a high school group you feel bad about yourself, if you cannot successfully fill all of your roles in college, then you feel inadequate and that you cannot do anything, if you do not look like the model on Instagram you feel fat and ugly and if you had a failed relationship you feel as if nobody can love you again because you are not ideal. In a study done by Lewinsohn, Gotlib, and Seeley (1995), they found that negative cognitions were a functional risk factor specific to MDD. They also stated that negative cognitions are important the Cognitive Theory of Depression by Beck (1978) and the Learned Helplessness Model of Depression by Abramson and colleagues’ which both relate to MDD and how it develops. In regards to Janet, the Learned Helpless Model of Depression is more present. This model states that a certain person knows that they are helpless in certain situations so they avoid them. Janet feels as if she cannot do anything to get her son to go to bed, so she often gives in and lets him sleep in her bed. She learned that she is helpless, so she gives into the situation every
This paper introduces a 35-year-old female who is exhibiting signs of sadness, lack of interest in daily activities and suicidal tendencies. She has no interest in hobbies, which have been very important to her in the past. Her lack of ambition and her suicidal tendencies are causing great concern for her family members. She is also exhibiting signs of hypersomnia, which will put her in dangerous situations if left untreated. The family has great concern about her leaving the hospital at this time, fearing that she may be a danger to herself. A treatment plan and ethical considerations will be discussed.
Unmanageable stress can cause depression. Never getting a chance to focus on yourself and always being busy may cause you to be over stressed. Taking time to prioritize life’s obligations and allowing time to take care of yourself is a way to prevent feelings of being tired, sad, anxious, or depressed.
Depression is much more common than most people think. Because it is essentially an invisible illness and is largely in the mind, it is difficult to correctly diagnose it and most people suffer for months, years, or even decades with depression. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines depression as “a mood disorder marked especially by sadness, inactivity, difficulty with thinking and concentration, a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness, and sometimes suicidal thoughts or an attempt to commit suicide.” Most medical definitions are able to explain what happens and why it does, but after carefully examining this one, we only notice that it explains what happens, but not why. Usually, the symptoms of an illness are...
The loss of a family member could be one good example. It could be your mother or father or sibling or a really close relative. The absence of someone you love unconditionally would be really heart breaking. The loss of their company would bring loneliness into someone. Especially if you are around that person every day, knowing that they will not come back would be really hurtful. Even the thought of losing your mom or dad is very harsh. In some cases someone really close to you could pass away and maybe ya’ll where not so happy with each other. Having someone go way without working things out could bring a lot of depression into someone. One other good example could be a break up. We are human, we love its normal. Becoming attached to someone and then it ending is very heart breaking. It is like you become part of the other person. You learn every detail about them. You know each other secrets, fears, wants etc. Then it all comes to an end. The couple tends to go separates ways. What really hurts is that you guys become strangers however; you know everything about that person. That empty feeling triggers depression. Felling alone and with this irreplaceable love that nobody can give you can really make someone feel depressed. Lack of love can be a trigger of
“Learned helplessness is a phenomenon containing three components: contingency, cognition, and behavior. Contingency addresses the uncontrollability of the situation. Cognition refers to the attributions that people make regarding their situation or surroundings of which they are a part. Behavior allows individuals to decide whether they will give up or proceed with the obstacle set before them” (Peterson, Maier, & Seligman, 1993; Firmin, Hwang, Copella, & Clark, 2004). When a student thinks about college he must take either the ACT or the SAT test to be admitted into the college. Students have a lot of decisions to make that can be stressful. Failure is an aspect that students fear and can determine whether they will succeed in life.
It is known that depression is a growing issue, but the question is why it is continuing to affect more and more people, specifically students. It is difficult to pinpoint a specific cause when there are so many theories as to what exactly causes depression. Some argue that it is genetic while others say it is a result of too much stress. This is not to say that there is only one cause of depression, but there has to be a reason why the number of depressed students has been increasing in the recent years.
Also discussed in this concept are the theories of depression. Learning Theory states that patients experience depression as a result of a loss of control over one’s life. This could be a factor for C.R. in that he did not have control over his wife’s passing and his subsequent move to the nursing home. Another theory is Cognitive Theory, which states that those who are depressed focus on the negative aspects of life instead of the positive. C.R. has demonstrated that he sees the negative in situations instead of the positive. C.R. said, “I have nothing left to live for anymore so I don’t know why you bother” while performing nursing care. The text states regarding depression, “All present experiences are viewed as negative, and there is no hope for the future.” (Pearson 2011) The text also states that symptoms
The exact causes of depression seem to differ immensely, but there are some who believe that it maybe caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, or that it may even be hereditary. Still there are others who believe that it is a combination of social, biological, emotional, psychological, and economical influences that may cause someone who has no family history of depression to develop even a mild case of depression.
Susan Schenkel, author of “Giving Away Success” says “there are many ways we discount ourselves. Three of the most common patterns are: 1) emphasizing the negative 2) automatically attributing success to something other than ability, and 3) automatically blaming failure on lack of ability” (Schenkel, 6). Schenkel explains how women also end up being susceptible to falling into helplessness as a result of uncontrollability, which is the belief that nothing can be done to rectify their current state of misfortunes. As a result they end up withdrawing, for example, stopping, quitting or escaping from making ardent efforts to deal with their existing problems. A second thing they tend to do is to avoid getting into tough situations. They do this by shying away from confrontation with the difficulty they feel unable or unwilling to handle (Schenkel, 19). As a result of this helplessness disrupts behavior such as undermining motivation, interfering with ability to learn and creating emotional distress (Schenkel, p. 24).
There are many factors that could contribute to depression among the aging including illness, loss of close family members, or financial problems.
The silent killer that takes lives without warning, punishment, or any sympathy; depression is truly one of the most prominent mental illnesses in the world. Depression is defined as a mental illness inducing a severe and staunch feeling of sadness. The term depressed is coined in English as a temporary sadness that everyone experiences in their life. Despite that depression is more active in women, it is still one of the most common mental illnesses in the world. It affects anybody, regardless of sex, race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic standing. Regardless of all these facts, surprisingly little is known about depression, however, scientists have been able to hypothesize major causes, effects, and treatments for the disability affecting over
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.