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Suffering and dying well
Published in Govert den Hartogh, What Kind of Death, 2023
This approach fails to recognize the cognitive aspect of all emotions, including the negative ones: they are all more or less adequate responses to the situation the person finds herself in. The same is true of suffering as an overall response to that situation. To give one example: many studies seem to use the term ‘depression’, either as an equivalent of ‘sadness’, or as an indication of a high degree of sadness. This suggests that sadness as such is a pathological state that should always be attenuated as much as possible. But the essential characteristic of depression as a pathological state is being sad without loss, or, in case of a loss, out of proportion to it, and when you are acutely aware of, for example, losing all options for meaningful activities and self-care, it would rather be pathological for you not to be sad. Sadness is by itself a mood, not a mood disorder, and hence not necessarily something to be avoided or minimized.
Chain or functional analysis of suicidal behaviour
Published in Lorraine Bell, Helping People Overcome Suicidal Thoughts, Urges and Behaviour, 2021
General principles for “chaining” are: Keep it simple.Help the person take an active part – get them to write it or co-write it.Focus on the few hours before the suicide attempt.Validate whenever you have the opportunity or prompt based on your knowledge of the person and their risk factors or drivers, e.g. regarding distal or stable risk factors which may not necessarily appear in the chain.Elucidate the personal meaning (which will be in “thoughts” quadrant) of direct drivers (see p…).Identifying factors as thoughts or beliefs, emotions, actions or physical sensations is helpful for making an accurate formulation as well as providing teaching points for the client. Hopelessness, for example, is a combination of an emotion (sadness) and a thought (“I have no future”; “my life is over”, etc.). Thoughts and emotions indicate different skills for managing them. Sadness will probably need acceptance-based skills such as distress tolerance whereas thoughts can be modified (change skills) or defused from.
Foundations for Conceptualizing and Treating Depression in Girls and Women
Published in Laura H. Choate, Depression in Girls and Women Across the Lifespan, 2019
While many people utter the expression, “I am so depressed!” they usually mean they are feeling temporarily sad or “down in the dumps.” As mental health professionals, we know that sadness is only one aspect of depression, but in the general population, many people are not aware of the nuances and breadth of depressive symptoms. In fact, it is possible to meet diagnostic criteria for MDD without experiencing depressed mood. The DSM-5 defines MDD as the experience of five or more symptoms that have occurred in the previous two weeks; to meet the criteria for the diagnosis, at least one of the five needs to be either depressed mood or loss of interest/pleasure in previously enjoyed activities. Other symptoms can include weight loss or weight gain; insomnia or hypersomnia; psychomotor agitation or retardation; fatigue; feelings of worthlessness or guilt; diminished decisiveness and concentration; or recurrent thoughts of death, suicidal ideation, or suicide attempt. The impact of these symptoms should cause clinically significant distress or impairment in multiple areas of functioning (APA, 2013). The reader is referred to the DSM-5 for more specific information about the diagnostic criteria for MDD.
Loneliness and psychological distress in everyday life among Latinx college students
Published in Journal of American College Health, 2023
Shun Ting Yung, Yaoyu Chen, Matthew J. Zawadzki
Overall, college campuses should consider loneliness as an important risk factor to intervene. Students who experience state loneliness tend to feel more psychological distress, which may in turn lead to underperformance. Furthermore, our study supports that loneliness may build up overtime and contribute to the development of mental health issues. Specially, loneliness is found to be related to sadness across all measurement periods (i.e., those who were lonelier were sadder on average). Although there are many symptoms that are part of a diagnosis for depression, persistent and sustained sadness or depressed mood over at least a two-week period is a cardinal symptom (along with loss of interest or pleasure).67 Given the potential for loneliness as a risk factor for this depressed mood, and that familism buffered the effect of loneliness on sadness, college campuses can target promoting better communications with families.
General practitioners’ perspectives on discontinuation of long-term antidepressants in nursing homes
Published in European Journal of General Practice, 2022
Ellen Van Leeuwen, Sibyl Anthierens, Mieke L. van Driel, An I. M. De Sutter, Evelien van den Branden, Thierry Christiaens
As in the study by Iden [18], our GPs respond to a resident’s low mood by prescribing an AD. Sadness can be a core symptom of depression, but it is often a normal emotional response to the end-of-life process, accompanied by loss of functional ability and health and loss of friends and relatives [27]. When a resident is ‘sad’, the cause of sadness should be further explored and the possibility of a diagnosis other than depression should be ruled out, rather than reaching for ADs and underestimating the resident’s coping resources. Nursing staff could respond to this low mood by providing company and encouraging social contact with others, offering meaningful activities or supporting the resident’s own coping resources based on a person-centred approach [27,28]. Our GPs see continuing the AD as empathising with the depressing situation of living in an NH. Although an emphatic attitude to the patient’s situation is essential in caregivers, a person-centred approach supporting residents’ resources and coping strategies would be more appropriate [27–30]. Our study elicits a need to include relatives and nursing staff in these approaches as they have a major role in the care.
New insights on the phytochemical intervention for the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders using the leaves of Michelia champaca: an in vivo and in silico approach
Published in Pharmaceutical Biology, 2022
Pushpa V. H., Jayanthi M. K., Rashmi H. R., Veeresh Kumar N. Shivamurthy, Shashank M. Patil, Prithvi S. Shirahatti, Ramith Ramu
Depression is a condition caused by a persistent sadness and lack of interest to carry out routine activities. A person is considered clinically depressed if he shows a persistent feeling of sadness and lack of interest for at least a period of 2 weeks or more. Lower mood, difficulties in thinking, loss of interest, and disruption in the normal routine such as disrupted sleep, loss of energy, and change in sex desire are all common symptoms of depression (Porter and Meldrum 2009). Characteristics such as loss of appetite, weight, sleep disturbances, psychomotor activity, decreased energy, feeling of worthlessness, guilty and suicidal ideation are commonly seen (Fauci et al. 2008). Major depression is estimated to be around 5% among the general population while a female to male ratio prevails at 5:2. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that about 450 million people exhibited certain amount of mental or behavioural disorder, which is often left undetected or untreated with the fear of the societal circumstances (Tsegay et al. 2020).