The term depression is often used to designate a complex pattern of deviation in feelings, cognition and behavior that is not represented as a discrete psychiatric disorder.
A feeling of depression may be a reaction to things that occur in daily life. It also may refers to a potentially disabling illness that effects many but is understood by few.
Sufferers often do not realize the nature of their terrible malaise until they are so devastated that they can no longer help themselves, or they may recognize what they have been though only after they are on their way out of the shadows.
The cluster of signs and symptoms is sometimes conceptualized as a psychopathological dimension ranging in intensity from mild to severe.
Depression as a syndrome is less common than depression as a symptom. It may be brought on by certain types of life stress; exist concurrently with various medical problems; or occur in conjunctions with psychological and psychiatric disorders, such as disruptive behavior disorders, schizophrenia and anxiety disorder.
The syndrome of depression may at times appear as a concomitant of definite psychiatric disorder such as schizophrenic reaction; in such a case, the diagnosis would be “schizophrenic reaction with depression.”
It is important to separate depressive disorders from everyday blue mood or sadness, which are not depression.
People with the blues or normal grief may experience short-lived symptoms of depression but usually continue to function almost normally and soon recover without treatment.
Every episode of depression has certain symptoms that last at least 2 weeks, including:
*Extremely low moods
*Sadness
*Loss of interest
*Severe problems functioning at home, at work, or with relating to others
The concept of depression
