Clinical Depression Affects The Brain
Q.Depression can be a completely incapacitating experience. Symptoms of depression can restrict our ability to work, to interact with others or take care of ourselves. Such a deeply frightening and overwhelming experience is understandably one that we want to eliminate from our lives as quickly and dependably as possible. And antidepressant medication seems to offer us this possibility.
A.According to Yapko, the most accurate answer to the question, “What causes depression symptoms and what causes clinical depression?” is “Many things.” There are: biological factors (including genetic, biological and neurological vulnerability) psychological factors (such as your coping style, temperament and ability to calm and regulate yourself), and social factors (your early life experience, your current family atmosphere, and the degree of social support you have and use). If we rely only on advertisements, we will have an entirely biological view of depression that may go so far as to declare “depression a serious disease that only your doctor can diagnose,” as some of the commercials state. But such statements ignore the huge amount of irrefutable evidence that depression symptoms and clinical depression involves much, much more than just “bad chemistry.” There are many reasons why the information about other factors in depression, some at least as important as the biochemical, is not as available to the general population as the “chemical imbalance” theories, including the following: Billions of dollars go into the advertising budgets of pharmaceutical companies to promote the view of depression as a “disease” requiring drug treatment. Physicians are intensively trained to define and treat most problems biologically and may have a great tendency, almost a reflex, to prescribe chemical treatments. Finally, there is a cultural shift to explain all our problems biologically with the result that there is less pressure to take personal responsibility and make hard personal changes. What about chemical imbalances? The chief problem with the view of depression as a consequence of a “chemical imbalance in the brain” is the fact that depression can be both triggered by and resolved by life events. The misconception the commercials foster is that the brain somehow develops a chemical imbalance and the result is depression, occurring in a single directional process. In fact, the relationship between brain chemistry and experience is a two-directional phenomenon: Life experience affects brain chemistry at least as much as brain chemistry affects life experience.
Other Questions :
Definition of "clinical depression" ?
I am a little confused about the definition of "clinical depression". Based on my personal experiences it has to be either: 1. Fatigue the cause of which does not show up on a the following tests: Chem 20, CBC, thyroid panel, and sed rate. ...
Depression Clinical Trial. Serotonin vs Dopamine ?
I recently started taking Lexapro, serotonin based pill for depression. I wonder why most medication for depression seem to focus on serotonin uptake inhibitors rather than adding dopamine?I don't know, but I know that there is a very popular...
Depression support groups ?
I thought there was too, but I only searched on *depression* this time. Now my toes are nearly working, I really should be able to get to the foreign language dictionaries, I suppose. Now, where did that step- ladder go?Several new depression s...
Meds for treating depression and anxiety ?
What causes depression symptoms and what causes clinical depression?If we rely only on advertisements, we will have an entirely biological view of depression that may go so far as to declare “depression a serious disease that only your doctor c...
Which anti-depressant drug is the best? Effexor?
Which Antidepression Drug Is Best? The finding doesn't mean people taking other antidepressants should switch. It doesn't even mean that Effexor is really better than other drugs -- only very large head-to-head studies can show for sure whe...