Essay on Depressive Disorders
Everybody, at a certain point in life, feels blue or sad. The feeling of being sad is usually
short–termed and it passes away in the matter of hours or days. Depression is a common, but a
very serious illness, so it is really important for the person who has it to seek for treatment. In
majority of cases, depression is curable, and that is why people should ask for help when they are
in need. There are many ways to effectively treat depression like medications, psychotherapies, and
other methods. Furthermore, there are several forms of depressive disorders: major depressive
disorder (major depression), dysthymic disorder (dysthymia), minor depression, psychotic
depression, postpartum depression, seasonal affective disorder, and bipolar...show more content...
It can be characterized by a fusion of various symptoms, which interfere with people in a way
where they are not able to work, sleep, study, eat, and enjoy their everyday activities. (Moussavi,
2007) ("Depression") All in all, major depressive disorder prevents people from functioning
normally. It can occur only once in a lifetime as a single episode, but most of the time people have
multiple episodes. Furthermore, another form of depressive disorders is dysthymic disorder, or
dysthymia. The thing that particularly characterizes dysthymia are long–term symptoms, which
have to be at least two years long. Those symptoms are usually not severe like the ones in major
depression, but they can prevent people from living a normal life. Minor depression is the third
big form of depressive disorders. It is characterized by having symptoms for at least two weeks,
which do not fully meet the criteria to be considered as major depression. It is very
recommendable for people with minor depression to treat it as soon as possible because it can
develop into major depression. (Moussavi, 2007) Nevertheless, there are a few forms of depression
that are unique, so people cannot really agree on how to characterize and define those particular
forms. One of them is psychotic depression, which is a combination of severe depression and a form
of psychosis such as delusions and hallucinations. Secondly, postpartum depression
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