Psychotic depression A lack of control over one's environment can lead to feelings of helplessness. A third treatment, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), may be used when chemical treatment fails. Psychotic depression. The different types of Depression and Anxiety are classified separately by the DSM-IV-TR, with the exception of hypomania, which is included in the bipolar disorder category. Reactions to events, often a loss in some form, are perhaps the most obvious causes. "The catecholamine hypothesis of affective disorders: a review of supporting evidence". A lack of control over one's environment can lead to feelings of helplessness. Seasonal affective disorder may point to an atavistic link with behaviour in hibernation. Other somatic expressions can be a sense of "dispirited", or "lagging" or being weighed down, and a heaviness in breathing, expressed as broken or despondent sighs. Some general physiological considerations include geics (i.e. a hypothesised innate disposition to depression), neurochemistry (e.g. high levels of stress hormones such as cortisol, low dopamine activity), sleep patterns, female hormone imbalance (e.g. PMS in women), male hormone imbalance (testosterone) in men, use of medication (e.g. corticosteroids), chronic illness (e.g. diabetes or hypothyroidism), and seasonal factors (e.g. seasonal affective disorder related to hormones and sunlight). Psychotic depression. Postpartum depression treatment
Cognitive behaviour therapy has been demonstrated in carefully controlled studies to be among the foremost of the recent wave of methods which achieve more rapid and lasting results than traditional "talk therapy" analysis. While a depressed mood is usually seen as deleterious, it may have adaptive benefits. Close medical supervision is critical to proper treatment if a patient presents with both illnesses because the medications tend to work against each other. For individuals who are in genuine need, however, the fitness cost of major depression is low because the individual is not generating many fitness benefits. However, if depressed mood lasts at least two weeks, and is acpanied by other symptoms that interfere with daily living, it may be seen as a symptom of clinical depression, dysthymia or some other diagnosable mental illness, or alternatively as sub-syndromal depression. |