Emotion is a beautiful thing; the sad times let us appreciate the good, and the good times keep us wanting more of life. We are all a little addicted to emotion in some way, whether we like the rush of a horror film, the sad depth of a tragic book, or the endorphin rush of a comedian doing standup. The United States is said to be one of the top in the arts and film, and we clearly have a love for the ups and downs of the world, the nasty, the gritty, and the raw. We are also in the top for depression. Passion is the driving force behind beauty and we are starting to hand over our passion for a little pill. A little dramatic, I’ll give you that, but I’m a dramatic kind of girl and I would hate if that changed because I was talked into taking …show more content…
Do we do this? Typically not. We seem to generally rely on medication to get us through these feelings. SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) are the main type of medication used to treat depression and they work by blocking the reuptake of serotonin letting it remain longer in the synaptic cleft. SSRIs have been found to increase the likelihood of suicide in children, teenagers, and adults with Paxil being one of the biggest offenders (Breggin, 2008). So let us pretend that we are giving these medications to child. Keep in mind they have been tested on adults, not children, so we do not even know if they work, and we know they may cause suicide risk. This is also assuming our child is simply dealing with ‘depression’ but what if the child is ‘bi-polar?’ Will we give them Paxil for the depression, but then we will probably need to throw in Xanax for anxiety, so now this child has been given a few drugs to battle it out inside of their developing brains. With all of this and then the stress of being told there is something wrong with them, they probably cannot sleep. What do we do? Throw more medications into the cocktail until this child is spellbound. Now let us sit this child down and ask how they are feeling. One of two things will probably happen, the child will sit perfectly still (stupor) and agree that the drugs are working thanks to some anosognosia and a little …show more content…
Talk therapy is one of the most popular alternatives to medication. How unnerving is it that the classic therapy is now considered an alternative? A study looked at emotion-focused therapy and found that the patient went from severely depressed to only mildly depressed. The patient found that he was more able to understand and express his feelings as well as understand his own limits after going through emotion-focused talk therapy (Watson, Goldman, & Greenberg, 2011). Diet and exercise has also been shown to help prevent and treat depression. A study done recently took a look at exercise and its effect on mild depression by reducing the effects of depression-like behaviors possibly by reducing “inflammation and oxidation stress via a multitude of cellular and humoral neuroimmune changes (Eyre & Baune, 2011).” Even something as simple as massage and aromatherapy has been found to reduce depression. One review looked at studies done in the 90s and found that aromatherapy massage helped more blood flow to the prefrontal cortex which could help improve depression like symptoms (Okamoto, et al., 2005). Another study even found that something as simple as boswellia (frankincense) incense may be a TRPV3 agonist and may result in depression symptom alleviation (Moussaieff, et al., 2008). A mix of these techniques could very well serve to help alleviate depression in
America's fixation on happiness is the true disease, not sadness. American society pushes happiness on us from the moment we are born, it corrupts our perception of how beneficial sadness can be. Sadness is a necessary evil, if individuals do not experience sadness they cannot appreciate happiness truly. That is not to say that depression is not real but from experience, all I need, still, is a little time. I lost my best friend Sam in a drunk driving accident almost two years ago, even now two years later I am still heartbroken, still sad. Losing someone is hard and you do not get over a death of someone who was a big part of your life so easily. I have not recovered completely, nor do I think I ever will but I keep moving forward cherishing every day I have, even the bad ones. Going through this grief, whether it be through the loss of a loved one or the heartbreak of an ended relationship, it shows us that we are strong and we can prevail through times of darkness, all we need is time. In the end, it leaves us with a stronger character, sense of self-worth, and a new outlook on the life we take for granted. Sadness is very much an "integral place in the great rhythm of the cosmos" because without sadness we would not be
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy appears to be a new treatment, although its roots can be traced to Albert Ellis’s Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy, published in 1962. Cognitive therapy assumes that thoughts precede actions and false self-beliefs cause negative emotions. It is now known that most depression treatments have cognitive components to them, whether they are recognized or not. In the 1970’s many psychologists began using cognitive components to describe depression. From there, they developed cognitive forms to treat depression with impressive results (Franklin, 2003).
...ohol, John M. Psy. D. “Depression Treatment: Psychotherapy, Medication or Both?” Psych Central. N.p. (2008). Web. 17 Nov. 2013
Many members of our society have sculpted their listeners into fooling their selves into believing that there are only two types of “happy”, happy or depressed. This leads to individuals suppressing their problems or believing they are suffering from a chronic illness when sadness is just a natural emotion that a person faces throughout their lifetime. Begley mimics “get over it: take a pill” (558). When living in a world where not being “happy” can provoke your friends and family to encourage drug use or choose to decline spending time with you until you are “happy again may cause many people to not even tell someone they are having problems which can result in the sadness to increase. It is soothing to know not all experts would say you are sick and need help just for an ordinary feeling. A lay reader that has no idea of what most psychologist feels about the evading happiness situation, may have thought all professionals insist on everyone being happy even when they have no desire
...l and emotional signals can be influenced at several different levels in the brain, by a myriad of chemicals. The sole cause of depression seems to be the simultaneous breakdown of neurochemical pathways across the nervous systems. It is true that treating depression in all of its forms is much easier today with the advent of new antidepressants, but these drugs are correcting a neurochemical imbalance which is not specific to depression. There may exist and someday be discovered a particular mood regulation flaw which is responsible for depression, but given the research presented today, I would say there is not.
The most common solution to medicate with is either antidepressants or a form of psychotherapy. Antidepressants affects brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters, the goal of the medication is to restore a sense of chemical balance in the brain, and relieving the individual from a constant state of depression. A doctor may prescribe a patient antidepressants for up to several months, depending on the severity. Psychotherapy, on the other hand, involves a routine discussion with a mental health care specialist (Depression and College Students). There is an incredibly large amount of different antidepressant to cater to those who may not respond to one type of medication. However, often these medicines come with a large list of side-effects. A good friend of mine described the side-effects of his experience with antidepressants, which included difficulty concentrating, insomnia, mood swings, among many other personal side-effects. He would often find it difficult to cope with the amount of side-effects, and he found them to be interfering with his daily routine. However, considering the dangers of depression, he would agree that the side-effects seem to be the lesser of the two
Antidepressant usage has increased all around the world and is used by all ages. Doctors are prescribing more prescriptions, even if the patient does not need the medication. “Antidepressants prescriptions in the UK have increased by 9.6% in 2011, to 46 million prescriptions” (Are Antidepressants overused?). This study took place in the United Kingdom; however, a lot more prescriptions are being prescribed all around the world. The use of antidepressants is increasing to an all time high because doctors do not want to waste time talking about feelings. The psychologist’s just want the patients to feel better quickly so they prescribe antidepressants. Human beings as well as doctors think that prescribing medicat...
There are programs set in place to help children to understand at the rate they need, as well as other designated to help them manage their specific illness. Some programs that you can start your child in at a younger age are Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). In programs such as DBT it can teach them how to regulate their emotions as well as help them deal with intense relationships that they may otherwise struggle with (“Dialectical Behavior Therapy."). These programs can provide daily schedules; help in identifying what triggers outbursts and an action plan to deal with them. In addition, as your child gets older there are depending on the area you live in support groups and residential homes that can help them get support from their peers with a similar mental illness as theirs. Similarly to your children depending on where you live there are support groups for parents as well to go and have somewhere to talk about what they are feeling and gain more knowledge about how to better support their
...ceutical productions which define the pathology itself. In support of the idea that depression expresses a reduced capacity to interact with the environment rather than an abnormality based around an unidentifiable measurement of “chemical balance,” I will argue that the way in which pharmaceutical drugs standardize chemical deviance and treat mental illness like a biological disease disregards the normative component of depressive illnesses which must be considered as a response in one way or another to the environment in which they are experienced by each patient. By thinking about antidepressants not as correctional of a biological pathology but as a form of adaptation, I hope to show how their use must be considered in relation to values which combine scientific, social and experiential components that cannot be explained by scientific means alone.
In the article, “Happiness: Enough Already”, all the content we have to say that depression is a deadly disease, that if we let it control us, it can lead us to the grave. Eric Wilson argues that only by experiencing sadness can we experience the fullness of the human condition. Happiness and sadness are part of us in part of our life that is why we are human, we need the sadness to be happy in our daily life a clear example is the evil, good needs evil and evil needs good so that there is life. The drawbacks of constant, extreme happiness should not be surprising, since negative emotions evolved for a reason. Fear tips us off to the presence of danger, maybe the reason for all this is called Euphoria, this means that it is a pathological phenomenon that possibly affects the nervous system, even mentally, when there is euphoria promoted by some medicine or drug is very frequent that the person who presents the state of euphoria as opposed to receive some benefit, suffer damages in his body as much physical as psychological and emotional, such as the anxiety, depression and paranoia.
Despite all the valid points made in these claims, it doesn’t change the fact that “An estimated 16 million American adults—almost 7% of the population—had at least 1 major depressive episode last year”(Numbers,n.d.) and that “People of all ages and all racial, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds can experience depression” (Numbers, n.d.). People all over the world experience depression in many different forms. For some it is a mental illness that cripples the body, for the mind is powerful and has supreme control over the body to the point that it will continue to function for three minutes after the heart fails; as is the case with a personal friend of mine who has battled with depression since the seventh grade and has had to take many visits to the hospital and bottles of medications and various treatments in order to treat and fight off his depression that often prompts him to self-injury and causes him to get physically ill for many days. For
Cognitive behavioural therapy has been proven to be effective in the treatment of child and adolescent depression (Lewinsohn & Clarke, 1999; Harrington et al, 1998, March et al, 2004). There is general agreement in the clinical literature that the techniques of cognitive behavioural approaches to therapy are likely to be effective in treating depression (Brewin, 1996; Beech, 2000).
Approximately 17% of people are having depression in their lifetime (Gibbons, et al., 2012). It was found that “more than 350 million people of all ages suffer from depression” (World Health Organization [WHO], 2012). It is the fourth in the rating of major public problems, and it is predicted to be illness number one in developed countries by year 2030 (Hollon and Sexton, 2012). In Scotland, the number of patients in ten years has been reduced by half, but the number of antidepressants prescribed has doubled (Stirling, 2013). According the Scottish NHS there are 420 thousand patients who are receiving depression treatment (Stirling, 2013). However this statistics might not reflect the size of the problem. According to...
Gary Greenberg is himself a psychologist who practices in Connecticut and has dealt with depression many times over his lifetime. In his book he gives some very chilling facts about depression and its impact on our society. He states that in recent years the numbers of diagnoses of depression and prescriptions for antidepressants have sky rocked to the point where there has become an epidemic of depression (Greenberg 2011). Depression is so prevalent nowadays that it is being called “the common cold of mental illness” and is “the leading cause of disability” (Greenberg 2011:10)
Nobody wants to feel sad and hopeless but with depression that 's how you feel all the time. Untreated depression is a serious cause, there can be many different downfalls to this such as suicidal thoughts or committing suicide, insomnia, loss of appetite, the need of hurting yourself and mixed emotions. Did you know 90% of people who die from suicide have depression or other mental disorders ( Goldberg 3). Should depression go untreated? No, depression shouldn’t go untreated because they feel alone, but they need to take the necessary step of looking for help even if it’s without medication. A person with depression should not have to feel like they have to depend on pills to be happy again because pills do not work. It is all mental and if you believe medication is the only answer your gonna keep thinking to yourself that depression is okay. Don’t let antidepressants be something you depend on because every antidepressant has it’s side effects that make you feel worse than you already do without