Clinical Depression /Yates ?

Q.I could reproduce conversations I had with both my daughter who has a Masters in Clinical Psych and my best friend who is currently working on her doctorate testifying to the fact that Clinical Depression is an umbrella term to describe *any* type of depression that is clincally significant but I am sure no one would be interested in something I could have made up or people who dont have *acceptable* credentials because they dont have sufficient letters after their names , yet.

A.Depression is a serious medical illness. In contrast to the normal emotional experiences of sadness, loss, or passing mood states, clinical depression is persistent and can interfere significantly with an individual's ability to function. Symptoms of depression include sad mood, loss of interest or pleasure in activities that were once enjoyed, change in appetite or weight, difficulty sleeping or oversleeping, physical slowing or agitation, energy loss, feelings of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt, difficulty thinking or concentrating, and recurrent thoughts of death or suicide. A diagnosis of unipolar major depression (or major depressive disorder) is made if a person has five or more of these symptoms and impairment in usual functioning nearly every day during the same two-week period. Major depression often begins between ages 15-30 or even earlier. Episodes typically recur. Some people have a chronic but less severe form of depression, called dysthymia (or dysthymic disorder), that is diagnosed when depressed mood persists for at least two years and is accompanied by at least two other symptoms of depression. The whole reason I brought up the melatonin business got lost in my convoluted sentences. That reason is to tell you that mainstream medicine is not the bulwark against all things "natural" that you seem to believe it is. Sara's neurologist was advising us to try it two years before the study in Boston, and *that* was several years ago, so there's been mainstream interest in melatonin for at least the past five or six years. I went to a psychiatrist who was a pharmacist first. His *main* job was at a residential treatment clinic for disturbed adolescents--again, this was maybe ten years ago--and he even then was using St. John's Wort with young people because, he said, so many of them were reluctant to take standard medical treatment for their depression, and SJW was a good gateway drug for them. Those who had mild depressions *sometimes* improved on SJW; those who were more seriously depressed *sometimes* felt a small improvement, and began to believe for the first time that medication of some sort might actually not be such a bad idea--it was the thin edge of the wedge of getting them to take more potent mood elevators. (Also called major depressive disorder, major depression, clinical depression.) A type of depressive disorder characterized by episodes of severe depression and accompanied by additional symptoms such as fatigue, changes in appetite and weight, and sleeping difficulties, which lasts without remission for at least two weeks.

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