Depression

According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, depression is the leading cause of disability in America for people ages 15 to 44. Unfortunately, it is still widely misunderstood, which causes people to neglect themselves. There are so many different forms, the most major two being major depressive disorder and dysthymia. Symptoms can vary in the way they manifest themselves, and causes are still widely unknown. Luckily, there are many treatment options available. Understanding depression is the best way to combat it.

Depression is defined as, “a mood disorder marked especially by sadness, inactivity, difficulty with thinking and concentration, a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness, and sometimes suicidal thoughts or an attempt to commit suicide” (Merriam Webster). A close friend of mine battles depression and would describe it is, “a debilitating mood that makes it hard to get out of the bed in the morning, a desire to sleep all the time, inability to experience joy, and apathy towards life.” Due to its prevalent occurrence among several people groups throughout history, depression is known as the “common cold of mental illnesses” and has been called “the most widespread, serious,

Depression is a common mental disorder, characterized by sadness, loss of interest or pleasure, feelings of guilt or low self-worth, disturbed sleep or appetite, feelings of tiredness, and poor concentration. Depression can be long-lasting or recurrent, substantially impairing an individual’s ability to function at work or school or cope with daily

Depression is mental illnesses characterized by persistent feelings of sadness, despair and worthlessness that interfere with daily functioning and personal relationships. It is an illness caused by an imbalance of the chemicals in the brain. It affects about 19 million people and cost billions in any given year (Ford-Martin). Some of the symptoms of depression are having a hard time focusing, constant crying, and loss of interest or pleasure in ordinary everyday activities, sleep problems, problems with eating and weight (gain or loss). Depression strikes all age groups, and often goes unrecognized or inadequately treated.

Depression is a disease that many people suffer from everyday of their lives, there are cures and treatments that can get people help, but it is still and everyday struggle. “Depression is a psychoneurotic disorder characterized by a lingering sadness, inactivity, and activity, and difficulty in thinking and concentration.” (Lerner 1). Depression can be defined as a brain disorder, that people are diagnosed with.

Some researchers estimate that 15-20% of people in the US suffer from some sort of mental illness. One of the top listed is depression. Depression is defined by feelings of sadness or apathy that last at least 2 consecutive weeks and is severe enough to interrupt daily activities. A person treated or untreated can put a large amount of stress on a nurse and/or medical staff. Patients with this have frequent outburst of anger, irritability, and lack of energy to help themselves putting more physical strain on the ones around them.

Depression is defined as “an alteration in mood that is expressed by feelings of sadness, despair, or pessimism” (Neeb’s, 397). There are seven types of depressive disorders which are major depressive disorder, dysthymic disorder, postpartum depression, major depressive disorder with seasonal pattern, substance-induced depressive disorder, depressive disorder associated with another medical condition, and premenstrual dysphoric disorder. Each type of depression has it’s own criteria for a patient to be diagnosed under. Depression often goes hand in hand with anxiety disorders, psychotic disorders, substance use disorders, eating disorders, and personality disorders (ATI, 97).

According to the Mayo Clinic, a mental illness can be defined as a disorder, or multiple disorders that can all be on a spectrum, that can affect mood, cognitive abilities, and the way one acts. Mayo Clinic’s definition also includes the specification that, to be considered a mental illness, the symptoms generally effect a person’s ability to function in common life situations, all while causing quite a bit of stress. It becomes obvious that these types of diseases can be just as damaging as physical illnesses, hence the drastic need for treatment and continuing advancements in the methods of treatment.

Depression is a mental illness in which a person experiences deep, stable sadness and discontinued interest in nearly all activities. People also use the term depression to describe the temporary sadness, loneliness,

According to Nemeroff (2007), depression is a psychological illness that affects one’s feelings, thoughts and actions.

People of all ages, backgrounds, and walks of life have felt depressed and unhappy at some time in their lives. These periods of sadness usually pass after a short time, but for some people, this feeling can remain for weeks, months, and even years. (1) This prolonged state of unhappiness is called major (or clinical) depression and is characterized by a persistent sad or "empty" mood, loss of interest in favorite activities, difficulty concentrating, and many other symptoms. It is not simply a mental state but an illness that interferes with the way people feel, function, and think.(2)

Attributions are the answers to why people do the things they do. People’s behavior can have situational factors and dispositional factors. The situational factors cause external attributions and the dispositional factors cause internal attributions. An example of a scenario where the internal and external attributions can be studied is the following: a man, John, asks a woman, Alice, out on a date and he gets rejected. Possible situational factors can be that she already has a boyfriend, he asked her to go clubbing with him and she does not like to party, or she is not ready to have a relationship because of a recent break up. Possible dispositional factors could be that he should have showered before he talked to her instead of coming

One of the scariest emotional experiences a person can ever suffer during their lifetime is to experience a form of depression. Over one in five Americans can expect to get some form of depression in their lifetime. Over one in twenty Americans have a depressive disorder every year. Depression is one of the most common and most serious mental health problems facing people today. However, depression is often not taken seriously because of the large use of antidepressant drugs and the large number of sufferers. Depression is a serious illness and should be taken as so. Contrary to the popular misconceptions about depression today, it is a serious and deadly disorder.1

McShane & Glinow (2008) have proposed attribution process, a different perceptual activity, helps us interpret the world around us. The attribution process involved deciding whether an observed behavior or event is caused largely by internal or by external factors. The perceptual process of deciding whether an observed behavior or event is largely caused by internal or external factors. As Luthans (2008) said, attribution refers simply to how people explain the cause of another’s or their own behavior. There are two general types of attributions that people make: dispositional attributions, which ascribe a person’s behavior to internal factors such as personality traits, motivation, or ability, and

In Attribution theory the limitation is that an individual’s explanation of action might be biased. Every individual’s attributions are also meaningfully determined by their motivational and emotional drives. An individual might blame other persons to avoid individual accusation that is a very real self-serving attribution. Some individuals also make attributions to defend what they observe as attacks and even tend to accuse victims for their destiny as individuals pursue to aloof themselves from thoughts of suffering the same trouble. Persons also have a tendency to attribute less inconsistency to other people than themselves, seeing their selves as more complex and less foreseeable than others. Another limitation of attribution theory is the cultural differences that can be observed. Some people embrace more individualistic cultural views compared to others whose views were more rounded in traditional orientations. Biased information may yield to contrasting things depending on the cultural values apprehended by the attributor interpreting the information. However it should be acknowledged that these cross-cultural differences are outcomes from contrasting cultural conceptions acquired during development in the differing cultures, rather than from individual differences between attributors such as cognitive or experimental