Mental health

ASSESSMENT 2 - DEPRESSION
This essay is going to talk about of metal health disorders but mainly is going to be focused in depression. You are going to be able to have a description of depression, the most common signs and symptoms of this disorder, the different types of depression, the treatment for this disorder (pharmacological and non-pharmacological), the ways you can self-help to improveyour life and where can you find help to overcome this disorder.
A good way to define this disorder is that depression is a state of low mood that people feel, is also an evolutionary adaptation that everyone goes through tough and difficult times at different point in their lives like when they have to cope with stressful event or problems or when they have to cope with death of a love one ora relationship break-up. (Funnell, Koutoukidis, Lawrence, 2009).
Depression can develop and be an illness which can be more severe than the normal low mood and sadness and interferes with other parts of your life such school, relationship or work, University, etc. This mental disorder or behaviour does not have a real cause but sometime can occur by different factors during different eventsaround your life such as:
Genetics (a family member with a past-history of depression); biochemical (when the neurotransmitters fail to function normally); a stressful event ( a rape, a family death, a relationship break- up, family conflict, and abuse, parent’s divorce, etc.); personality style (people who tend to be anxious or low self-esteem, perfectionist or shy are more at risk to developdepression); having a baby (the famous post natal depression); menopause and other mental illnesses (schizophrenia). (Reachout.com, non-date).
There are different types of depression and each of them has their own symptoms, cause and treatment. The most common types are:
Non-melancholic depression (clinical depression) ; the cause in this type is psychological and occurs in response to a specificstressful event. This type is very hard to diagnose because does not have a define characteristic. The treatment for this includes psychotherapies, counselling and antidepressants.
Melancholic depression; is more severe than no-melancholic depression, it is cause by biological factors. This type of depression does not go away on its own and respond best with antidepressants.
Psychoticdepression; is less common than melancholic or non- melancholic depression but is a severe form. This also does not go away by itself and the treatment is antidepressant drugs. (Reachout.com, non-date).
During life everyone experiences some of these feelings or behaviours from time to time. However for people experiences depression the feelings might be more severe and they do not go away over time. Adepressed person with any type of depression will experience a low mood in different ways but the most common symptoms across all types can be:
Mood: A persistent sadness, moody or crap; feel of emptiness, feelings of hopelessness or helplessness or pessimism, feelings of worthlessness, guilt or blaming yourself, feel anxious, unable to feel good or enjoy things (activities)that you do normallyor were pleasurable (e.g. hobbies, sex, social activities, work, studies, university, etc.)
Thinking: people can be overly self- critical, they can believe that they cannot cope with things that are out of their control, they have difficulty making decisions and thinking clearly, they can experience a poor concentrating and memory, contemplating or thinking about suicide or ending their life,hallucinations (hearing voices)
Behaviour: people can loss motivation and loss of energy, they can cry more easily, can develop social isolation (withdrawing from your friends and family) or over dependent on their family and friends, if they are under treatment they can increase use of alcohol or other drugs, they also can loss their temper more easy than usual.
Physical: loss of appetite or...