Mood Disorders

Question 1

Major Depressive Episode

Answer 1

• state in which a person experiences a lingering depressed mood or diminished interest in pleasurable activities, along with weight loss and difficulty sleeping

Question 2

General Depressive Disorder

Answer 2

• Depression is recurrent
• Develops gradually or suddenly
• Depression can produce severe impairment

Question 3

Models of Depression

Answer 3

• Depression through Life Events (Freud; childhood trauma creating vulnerability)
• Interpersonal Model
• Behavioural Model
• Cognitive Model
• Learned Helplessness
• Biology

Question 4

Interpersonal Model

Answer 4

• people often elicit hostility and rejection from others, which maintains or worsens depression (social turn offs pushing people away)

Question 5

Behavioural Model

Answer 5

• Depressed people try new things with no pay off and give up on them (stop participating, worsening withdrawal)
• View implies the solution is pushing ourselves to engage with others or good activities

Question 6

Cognitive Model

Answer 6

• Depression is caused by negative beliefs and expectations
• Negative view of oneself; ones feelings of the present or future
• Depressive realism: mild depression sometimes causes a more accurate view of circumstances (depressed people may just be less attentive to reality)

Question 7

Learned Helplessness

Answer 7

• Tendency to feel helpless in the face of events we cannot control
• Blame bad on internal factors and good on external factors
• Symptoms: passivity; appetite weight loss; difficulty learning one change circumstances for the better

Question 8

Role of Biology

Answer 8

• twin studies indicate that genes exert a moderate effect on the risk of developing depression, especially in conjunction with life experiences

Question 9

Bio polar Disorder

Answer 9

• Diagnosed when there’s at least one manic episode
• Manic episodes often produce serious problems due to impairment on judgement.
• The most genetically influenced of mental disorders (increased activity in emotions + amygdala, and decreased activity with planning + prefrontal cortex)

Question 10

Suicide

Answer 10

• major depression and bipolar cause higher risks of suicide
• anxiety disorders associated with heightened suicide risk
• cannot easily study to determine which people will commit suicide because the period of risk is often brief
• low prevalence = hard diagnosis