Depression (6)

Depression (1)

All forms of depression and depressive disorders are characterised by changes to mood.

Major depressive disorder - severe but often short term depression

Persistent depressive disorder = long term or recurring depression, including sustained major depression and what used to be called dysthymia

Behavioural characteristics of depression (1)

Behaviour changes when we experience an episode of depression.

 

Activity levels

 

Typically people with depression have reduced energy levels, making them lethargic, this has a knock on effect, with people tending to withdraw from work, education and social life.

 

In extreme cases this can be so severe that a person cannot get out of bed.

In some cases depression can lead to the opposite effect - known as psychomotor agitation. Agitated individuals struggle to relax and may end up pacing up and down a room.

Behavioural characteristics of depression (2)

Disruption to sleep and eating behaviour 

Depression is associated with changes to sleeping behaviour. A person may experience reduced sleep (insomnia) particularly premature waking or an increased need for sleep (hypersomnia).

 

Similarly, appetite and eating may increase or decrease, leading to weight or gain loss. The key point is that such behaviours are disrupted are depression.

 

Aggression and self harm

People with depression are often irritable, and in some cases they can become verbally or physically aggressive.

 

This can have serious knock-on effects on a number of aspects of their life. For example, someone experiencing depression might display verbal aggression by ending a relationship or quitting a job.

Depression can also lead to physical aggression directed against the self. This includes self-harm and sometimes suicide.

Emotional characteristics of depression (1)

Lowered mood

When we use the word ‘depressed’ in everyday life we are usually describing having a lowered mood, in other words feeling sad. As you can see from the rest of this spread there is more to clinical depression than this.

Lowered mood is still a defining emotional element of depression but it is more pronounced than in the daily kind of experience of feeling lethargic and sad.

People with depression often describe themselves as ‘worthless’ and ‘empty’.

Lowered self - esteem

Self - esteem is the emotional experience of how much we like ourselves.

People with depression tend to report reduced self-esteem, in other words they like themselves less than usual.

This can be quite extreme, with some people with depression describing a sense of self-loathing.

Emotional characteristics of depression (2)

Anger

 

Although people with depression tend to experience more negative emotions and fewer positive ones during the episodes of depression, this experience of more negative emotion is not limited sadness.

 

People with depression also frequently experience anger, sometimes extreme anger. This can be directed at the self or others.

On occasion such emotions lead to aggressive or self harming behaviour - which is why this characteristic appears under behavioural characteristics as well.

Cognitive characteristics of depression (1)

The cognitive aspect of depression is concerned with the ways in which people process information.

People experiencing depression or those who have experienced depression tend to process information about several aspects of the world quite differently from the usual ways that people without depression think.

Cognitive characteristics of depression (2)

Attending to and dwelling on the negative

 

When experiencing a depressive episode, people are inclined to pay more attention to negative aspects of a situation and ignore the positives. They tend to see the glass half empty, rather than half full.

People with depression also have a bias towards recalling unhappy events rather than happy ones - the opposite bias that moist people have when not depressed.

Cognitive characteristics of depression (3)

Poor concentration

Depression is associated with poor levels of concentration.

The person may find themselves unable to stick with a task as they usually would, or they might find it hard to make decisions that they would usually find straightforward

Poor concentration and poor decision-making are likely to interfere with the individuals work.

Absolutist thinking

Most situations are not all-good or all-bad, but when a situation is depressed they tend to think in these terms.

This is sometimes called ‘black and white thinking’, which means that when a situation is unfortunate they tend to see it as an absolute disaster