The Main Topic: Mental Health
The main topic that I will be discussing in this paper is mental health. A person's mental health includes both their psychological and emotional states. It also contains the social side, which involves how a specific person will act and socialize with the other people in the surroundings. It is incredibly significant in all stages of human existence since it concerns how a person thinks and how that person reacts to various stimuli. All informed decisions are made based on the mental capacity and reasoning of that specific person. Moreover, mental health is very important as choices will also depend on the mental status of the person's socioeconomic status, culture or ethnicity.
The DSM and Depressive Disorder
The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) is a classification system in the United States that classifies different psychological disorders and keeps updating the diagnosable disorders that have increased dramatically. Among the many classifications DSM has, the Depressive disorder is our main focus.
Moods and Emotional Experiences
Moods tell us how we are doing in life. We feel either good or bad depending on what we have achieved as important goals, where we failed and such emotional experiences. Several disorders involve this kind of emotional experiences among them bipolar and depressive disorders.
Symptoms of Depressive Disorder
Depressive disorders are those that an individual suffers from depression due to lack of pleasure in life, the absence of joy, high level of sadness and low energy. Depressive disorders are common since a recent research in the US showed that 30% of people aged 13 years and above had a depressive episode for the last 12 months as at the date of research. Depression is different from other mood disorders since it involves specific brain structures that slow thinking and how a person perceives and relates to the world.
Some common symptoms of the depressive disorder include hopelessness, lack of energy and fatigue, poor concentration and slow thinking, and sleep problems which can be sleeping too much or lacking sleep. The most major ones being having a depressed mood most of the day, reduced interest or pleasure in activities that were once enjoyable, significant weight loss or gain or significant decrease or increase in appetite as well as feeling worthless or guilty in an excessive or inappropriate manner.
Treatment Options
The biological therapy for this disorder would be the use of antidepressant drugs such as camphor which are taken orally to treat the low levels of neutral-transmitter regulation or the Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for disorders such as schizophrenia or use of drugs. ECT is a therapy that passes an electric current through the head to produce brain seizures though this method has changed with time for better results. (routledge)
Psychotherapy is the first form of treatment recommended for depression. "During psychotherapy, a person with depression talks to a licensed and trained mental health care professional who helps the person identify and work through the factors that may be triggering the depression." (Cleveland Clinic, 2014)
Support and Encouragement
Depression can be cured if handled in a good way. The first step into helping someone with depression is letting them know that you care about how they feel and doing actions that actually show that you care. It is also wise to be positive in what you talk about to create a warm atmosphere. If they haven't been checked be sure to take them to a trained mental health care professional who they can talk to about what is troubling their mind. Last but not least, if they are under any type of therapy, remind them to attend or take their drugs in a friendly manner so they don't feel offended.
Work Cited
Cleveland Clinic. (2014). Retrieved from my.Cleveland Clinic.org.
routledge. (n.d.). Retrieved from routledge.com.
