Depression affects hundreds of millions of people around the world. It occurs along a continuum of severity that ranges from relatively mild episodic states of depressed mood to serious, long-term depressive symptoms that can greatly impact the quality of a person’s life. Major depression negatively impacts how someone thinks, feels, and acts and is characterized by feelings of sadness or loss of interest in activities that they once enjoyed.
Automatic negative thoughts are involuntary and hard to inhibit self-statements influenced by negative underlying core beliefs and include negative thoughts about oneself, perceived threats from others, and the future.
The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21) is a well-established, self-administered instrument with 21 statements that help people define, understand, and measure clinically significant emotional states.
Dogs with depression can exhibit similar symptoms to humans with depression. Learning more about dog depression may enable you to help your pet receive effective treatment if necessary.
Persistent depressive disorder (PDD), also called dysthymia, is a low-level, chronic form of depression. Because this condition is ongoing, people with PDD tend to have no positive emotional point of reference for comparison and therefore may view their constant, low levels of depression as normal.
Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD) is a mental condition that can affect children and adolescents and is characterized by excessive displays of irritability or anger or by temper outbursts.
Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is a more serious form of premenstrual syndrome. Symptoms are much more intense and often interfere with a woman’s ability to work, attend school, or socialize regularly.
Rather than having one episode of depression, whether short or long, a person with recurrent depressive disorder will experience additional episodes of depression after periods of time without symptoms.
When someone experiences chronic, severe symptoms that require professional treatment, their disorder will typically be referred to as major depressive disorder or clinical depression.