Depression is a state of sadness or despair that has advanced to a point where the normal social functions of a person are altered. I would like to emphasize that clinical depression is different from depression or when we usually say “I am down today, I am feeling the blues, I am depressed and lonely.” When we experience that, we just contemplate alone or we surround ourselves with activities until the loneliness goes away. This is normal. This is what is called as depression as a mood. But clinical depression is different. When a person experiences clinical depression, he or she is in a state of despair that may possibly lead to suicide or worse, multiple homicides. The person may want to let other persons who have caused his problems go down with him. This is something serious. This is something to be addressed by medical professionals. Thus, the term clinical depression.
One of the factors of clinical depression are anhedonia. In psychological terms, anhedonia is an abnormal state described as a person doesn’t feel any pleasure at all. Anhedonia associated with clinical depression has nothing to do with sexual anhedonia. Sexual anhedonia is an abnormal state of sexual orgasm where the person doesn’t feel any sexual pleasure at all. This condition is most found in males. There is an explanation for that though. It may be because your blood lacks prolactin. But so much for sexual anhedonia. I’ll discuss more about the other symptoms of depression – gain or loss of weight and tendency towards insomnia.
Since this is a highly psychiatric phenomenon, clinical depression is diagnosed using subjective, not tangible, means. By not tangible, I mean laboratory tests, etc.
Still, there are clinical depressions which are passing. One example is the postpartum depression. As the term deduces, this particular type of clinical depression is caused by the tensions during childbirth and the first two years of motherhood. There is another clinical depression which is just passing – the premenstrual dysphoriais. In the days leading to your menstruation, the decline of serotonin function in your brain affects your mood. These are relatively nothing serious though although they are classified under clinical depression because they are caused by the physiological functions of the body.
Life experiences of a person and even living with a clinically depressed person himself play significant roles in the development of clinical depression in a person. By life experiences, I mean rejection by parents or loved ones, abuse during childhood, poverty, despair caused by the inability to feed one’s family and other factors one may consider as traumatic.
Again I’ll emphasize that since clinical depression is relatively psychological, its most powerful remedy is therapy. Although another powerful tool is medication. The most common ones prescribed by psychiatrists are antidepressants. Other tools are tranquilizers and sedatives. Omega 3 fatty acids are also commonly encouraged by psychologists to be taken by persons afflicted with clinical depression. On the other hand, therapy – even though it is just a counseling method – is divided severally. There is cognitive therapy, narrative therapy, supportive therapy, behavioral therapy and family therapy.
