Sunday, February 07, 2016

Normal moods and depression

There is little agreement among authorities regarding the relationship of depression to the changes in mood experienced by normal individuals.

The term mood is generally applied to a spectrum of feelings extending from elation and happiness at one extreme, to sadness and unhappiness at the other. The particular feelings encompassed by this term, consequently, are directly related to either happiness or sadness.

Subjective states, such as anxiety or anger, that do not fit into the happiness-sadness categories ate not generally included.

The episodes of low mood or of feeling blue experienced by normal individuals are similar in a number of ways to the clinical states of depression.

First, there is a similarity between the description of the subjective experience of normal low mood and of depression. The words used to describe normal low mood tend to be the same used by depressives to describe their feelings – blue, sad, unhappy, empty, low, lonely.

It is possible, however, that this resemblance may be due to depressed patients’ drawing on familiar vocabulary to describe a pathological state for which they have no available words. Some patients, in fact, state that their feelings during their depression are quite distinct from any feelings they have ever experienced when not in a clinical depression.

Second, the behavior of the depressed patient resembles that of a person who is sad or unhappy, particularly in the mournful facial expression and the lowered voice.

Third, some of the vegetative and physical manifestation characteristics of depression are occasionally seen in individually who are feeling sad but who would not be considered clinically depressed. A person who has failed an examination, lost job, or been jilted may not only feel discouraged and forlorn, but also experience anorexia, insomnia and fatigability.

Finally, many individuals experience blue states that seem to oscillate in a consistent or rhythmic fashion, independently of external stimuli, suggestive of the rhythmic variations on the intensity of depression.
Normal moods and depression 

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