Still Down by Dean F. MacKinnon

Author:Dean F. MacKinnon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2016-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Summary: Double Depression

* * *

“Double depression” is a psychiatric colloquialism that used to denote major depressive disorder superimposed on dysthymic disorder or depressive personality. The term in use currently is “persistent depressive disorder.”

There are constitutionally gloomy people who never lapse into a major depressive episode, and there are cheerful people who occasionally fall into major depression. These are separate problems that can interact when both are present. When a gloomy person has had major depressive disorder, the gloomy personality can easily be mistaken for a manifestation of the major depressive disorder.

A constitutionally gloomy person recovering from major depression is likely to recover back to a state of gloominess; one cannot take the low mood alone as the key indicator of undertreated major depressive disorder.

Major depressive disorder is defined as a disorder by its adverse impact on functioning. Not every person with major depressive disorder becomes incapacitated; many will heroically drag themselves out of bed and force themselves to go to work. But if you look at their productivity, or how efficiently they can do what they were able to do before they had depression, you will see a tangible decline in function. The ability of a person with chronically low mood to sustain a job and relationships over many years, however unsatisfying they are, does not prove, but does suggest, that the low mood stems from something other than major depressive disorder.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.