Please respond to the following question

• Define the term depression in your own words. Describe a time in your life when you were depressed. How did you get through it?

Mood DisordersChapter 18

Section 5

By the Shore

Death in the Sickroom

The Scream

Mood DisordersMost people get depressed occasionally.

However, clinical depression is a serious mood disorder that has little in common with the “blue moods” most people have from time to time.

People with these types of disorders have intense moods that last a long time.

What is depression?

Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person’s thoughts, behavior, feelings and state of well-being.

Seasonal Affective Disorder

• A type of depression• Less light available in

winter= more melatonin secreted by the pineal gland.

• Treatments: temporary sleep deprivation, exposure to artificial light

Major Depressive Disorder

• The major depressive disorders are so severe that they interfere with normal concentration and social functioning.

• Symptoms can include loss of appetite, sleeplessness, and noticeable weight changes (either an increase or decrease).

Major Depressive Disorder (cont.)People who suffer from major depression

tend to feel a deep hopelessness, view themselves as inadequate and/or worthless, and often have suicidal impulses.

Bipolar Disorder

• Sufferers alternate between despair and mania

• Manic phase: elation, confusion

• Depressive phase: same as for people with major depression

Bipolar Disorder (cont)

• Some have theorized that the two phases reinforce one another, with the manic episode serving as an attempt to ward off the underlying hopelessness of the depressive period.

• Others believe that bipolar disorder has a biochemical origin.

• Bipolar disorder may possibly be cyclical, occurring at regular intervals

Bi-polar and teens

• Richie’s video

Explaining Mood DisordersPsychological Views

• Psychoanalytic of depression:– People are prone to depression because they

suffered a real or imagined loss of a loved object or person in childhood.

• Learning Theories of depression:

- Believe that people that learned helplessness makes people prone to depression.

Explaining Mood DisordersPsychological Views

• Cognitive Theorists of depression:– Some people are prone to depression

because of their habitual style of explaining life events,

– People assign different types of explanation to most events

Explaining Mood DisordersBiological Views

• Moods disorders, like anxiety disorders, tend to occur more often in the close relatives of affected individuals that they do in the general population.

• Between 20% & 25% of people with mood disorders have a family member who is affected by a similar disorder.

• Scientist believe that 2 neurotransmitters in the brain- serotonin and noradrenaline- may at least partly explain the connection between genes and mood.

Suicide• Escape from physical or emotional pain,

terminal illness or loneliness, old age

• Desire to end “unacceptable” feelings

• Attempt to “punish” loved ones who they feel should have perceived and attended to their needs.

Suicide (cont)

• Every year, more than 32,000 Americans end their own lives

• One suicide occurs every 16 minutes.• Women attempt suicide more than men, but men

are more likely to succeed. • Suicide also occurs more commonly among the

elderly and college students (its actually the 2nd leading cause of death among college students).

• 70% of those who threaten suicide kill themselves within 3 months of making the threat.

Suicide (cont)• Risk factors:

– History of previous suicide attempts

– Family history of suicide – History of depression or

other mental illness – Alcohol or drug abuse – Stressful life event or loss – Easy access to lethal

methods – Exposure to the suicidal

behavior of others – Incarceration

Kurt Cobain• Even people who seemingly

“have it all” commit suicide sometimes.

• Musician Kurt Cobain of the band Nirvana was at the top of the charts when he killed himself with a shotgun,

He left behind a note which stated, “ I’m too much of an erratic, mood baby! I don’t have the passion any more and so remember, its better to burn out than to fade away.”