Depression What Is It?
- Tom Bender
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
Depression Test:
Depression can be treated but the first step is determining whether symptoms are present. Next steps, speak to your primary care physician or contact us to set up an appointment to discuss a therapy plan.
What Is Depression?
Depression, is a mood disorder which may descend seemingly out of the blue, or it may come on the heels of a defeat or personal loss. Depression can produce persistent feelings of sadness, worthlessness, hopelessness, helplessness, pessimism, or guilt. Depression can also interfere with concentration, motivation, and aspects of everyday functions.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 300 million people of all ages suffer from depression. Some 15 million Americans battle with depression, and increasing numbers of them are young people.
What Causes Depression?
There is no single known cause of depression. Rather, it likely results from a combination of genetic, biologic, environmental, and psychological factors. Major negative experiences like trauma, loss of a loved one, a difficult relationship, or any stressful situation that overwhelms the ability to cope may trigger a depressive episode. Subsequent depressive episodes may occur with or without an obvious trigger.
What are the major signs of depression?
Because depression is complex and affects so many systems of the body, it has many manifestations, and which ones are most prominent can vary from person to person.
Symptoms include:
• Feelings of sadness, emptiness, or hopelessness
• Irritability, angry outbursts, or low frustration tolerance
• Loss of interest in or ability to enjoy usual activities, from sex to sports
• Sleep disturbance, whether inability to sleep or sleeping too much
• Fatigue and lack of energy; everything feels effortful
• Appetite disturbance, which include weight loss or overeating and weight gain
• Anxiety, agitation, and restlessness
• Slowed thinking, moving, or talking
• Feelings of worthlessness and guilt, a focus on past failure, self-blame
• Difficulty concentrating, remembering things, and making decisions
• Recurring thoughts of death
• Physical pain such as headaches or back pain that has no clear cause.
How do thinking styles influence depression?
Cognitive distortions are strongly linked to depression, below are 12 examples of cognitive distortions.
1. All or nothing thinking – Also called black and white, polarized, or dichotomous thinking. Viewing a situation in only one or two categories instead of a continuum. Example: If I am not a total success, I am a failure.
2. Catastrophizing – Predicting the future negatively without considering other, more likely outcomes.
3. Disqualifying or discounting the positive – Unreasonably tell yourself that positive experiences, deeds, or qualities do not count.
4. Emotional reasoning – Thinking something must be true because you feel or believe it so strongly, ignoring or discounting evidence to the contrary. Example: I know I do a lot of things, but I am still a failure.
5. Labeling – Putting a fixed or global label on yourself or others without considering evidence that might reasonably lead to a less disastrous conclusion.
6. Magnification/minimization – Evaluating yourself, another person, or a situation, you unreasonably magnify the negative or minimize the positive.
7. Mental filter – Paying undue attention to one negative detail instead of seeing the whole picture.
8. Mind reading – Believing you know what others are thinking, failing to consider other, more likely possibilities.
9. Overgeneralization – Making a sweeping negative conclusion that goes far beyond the current situation.
10. Personalization – Believing others are behaving negatively because of you, without considering any other explanations for their behavior.
11. Should & Must statements – Having a precise, fixed idea of how you and others should behave. Overestimating how bad it is that these expectations are not met.
12. Tunnel vision – Only seeing the negative aspects of a situation.
How Is Depression Treated?
Even in the most severe cases, depression is highly treatable. Many studies show that the most effective treatment is cognitive behavioral therapy, which addresses problematic thought patterns, with or without the use of antidepressant drugs. Depression can be seen as a state of depletion that occurs when problems overwhelm a person’s resources for solution. Therapy aims directly at the development of new solution patterns, coping techniques, problem-solving skills, and understanding of one’s own vulnerabilities gained during therapy are useful over the course of a lifetime.
As with physical health, maintaining mental health and building resilience may be a challenge. But there are many measures that anyone can take to avoid or even reverse the shutdown cycle that depression imposes. "Change your beliefs and it will change your thoughts. Change your thoughts and it will change your emotions. Change your emotions and it will change your behavior. Change your behavior and it will change your life."
*Source Material:
Psychology Today
