Depression

Depression

Sara Worsham

PSY/270

April 20, 2014

Richard Ferguson

Depression

When it comes to depression, it is not a clear cut diagnosis. There are so many factors, symptoms that are involved with this disease. Many people who have never experience depression may believe it revolves only around crying, sadness, and wanting to commit suicide. However, the feelings behind depression are much more complex, and most people have a hard time explaining exactly how they feel when they are suffering from depression. Throughout the span of depression, researchers have been able to decipher differences between bipolar and unipolar depression. While these two forms of depression do seem to run parallel to each other, they do have vast differences between them.

When starting to distinguish the differences that encircle bipolar and unipolar disorder, changes had to be made with depression that accompanied mania. With bipolar depression, not everyone who experiences depression will experience mania. Evidence suggests that mania and depression are able to be viewed as two separate continuums, not opposite ends of the same dimension. The depressive episodes seem to demonstrate period with and without mania. It is suggested that when depression is being experienced, a complete history needs to be completed to check for areas of mania in order to diagnose the correct polar of depression. If the diagram that has existed for bipolar depression remains to be true, biological evidence would be more pronounced in bipolar depression than unipolar depression. In other words, a stronger genetic factor would play a role in bipolar depression, while the genetic factor would not play so much a role in unipolar depression. In bipolar depression, psychological triggers would be less pronounced, and these factors would be more pronounced in unipolar depression.

Also within bipolar depression, sleep patterns will begin to fluctuate, causing the sufferer hypersomnia, excessive...