Major depression, or unipolar disorder, is the most commonly experienced form of depression, and the kind of depression this website refers to as “depression.” Major depression is a mood disorder and includes a combination of many symptoms.
This mental disorder is characterized by a persistent sad mood, changes in appetite, sleep problems, changes in activity (either apathy or agitation), sexual dysfunction and feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, anxiety, worthlessness, guilt and anger. Major depression is also the kind of depression that follows or precedes a manic episode.
What’s clinical depression?
Clinical depression, also known as major depression, is a syndrome – a collection of symptoms – rather than just one. The prevailing mood is the exact opposite of mania: a person is withdrawn, inhibited, sullen and slow moving. In some cases, the person is agitated and upset.
How else is it called?
These are also called mood disorders, or affective disorders. Statistics on depression is the most common psychiatric disorder treated today.
What is a mood disorder and how many are there?
Mood disorder is a broad term used to describe mental disturbances with symptoms that cause significant changes in emotions, behaviors, and physical condition. Mood disorders always involve a mood of depression or elation, and are characterized by a decrease or an increase in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Physicians recognize four types by statistics on depression: major depression, or unipolar disorder; manic-depression, called bipolar disorder; mild prolonged depression, or dysthymic disorder; and mild manic periods with mild depressed periods, called cyclothymic disorder. These other types are discussed later in the chapter.
What does it mean to be clinically depressed?
When a person is clinically depressed, his or her depressed mood and accompanying symptoms have gone beyond normal human sadness: the condition has ceased to be normal, and needs medical treatment.
What are the statistics on depression?
Studies seem to indicate that it is. Also, increased knowledge is lifting the stigma of depressive disease, and people feel freer to admit their symptoms. Despite the large numbers of people that physicians do see, estimates are that they are only a small percentage of those actually suffering from the disease. Millions of people still suffer in silence and shame.
Statistics on depression say that it occurs in approximately three to four people out of every 1,000. Those figures may be low because depression can easily be misdiagnosed as another illness or because of people who do not seek medical help. About 20 million people in the United States, and 100 million worldwide, suffer from diagnosable depression at any one time.
Isn’t depression just a cop-out for living one’s life?
Depression is a biological brain disease and is no more a cop-out than cancer. A person suffering from depression can be just as incapacitated as someone who suffers from any another physical illness. Depression affects the whole body and mind. It can cause death by suicide or substance abuse. Physical symptoms such as anxiety headaches, backaches, stomach pain, heart palpitations, gas or constipation can be part of the disease.
Clinical depression is much more than a sad mood. From statistics on depression, we know that It is a treatable, physical disease and is recognized as such by the medical profession.
How widespread is depression?
As many as 25 percent of the American population will experience a major depressive episode over the course of his or her lifetime.
Is depression all in your head?
Not at all. From statistics on depression, it is a syndrome with both psychological and biological aspects. Some mild depressions may be a reaction to a loss or another kind of life stressor. They can often be treated with psychotherapy alone, because the person learns new calming techniques and behavioral modifications that can ease the mind, and therefore help the body to re-establish normal biological rhythms. Major depression, however, the more serious form of depression, requires medication treatment to readjust the chemical imbalance in the brain.
Isn’t depression just self-pity?
Although by, statistics on depression, a depressed person can at times feel self-pity, the disease of depression is not a self-pitying disease any more than is diabetes or a heart condition.
The depressed person isn’t experiencing self-pity, but most often just feels blah and loses interest in himself or others. A self-pitying person may say, “Poor me, life has been so unfair, and people don’t like me.” A depressed person’s thoughts tend to lean toward,”I have messed up in my life and I have ruined all my relationships.”
This is not self-pity but self-blame.