We can begin by expressing that it is a picture with a depressed mood. Not only the presence of sadness or absence of happiness, with affective disorders, which last most of the day on most days, with alterations in the subject’s main vital areas: it affects appetite and weight; the dream; social life; work and recreational activities; and also sexuality.
There are four symptoms to note:
1. Abulia: the lack of will. It is the loss of energy and motivation. Disinterest.
2. Helplessness: Apprehended helplessness (hopelessness learned) where the subject feels that he cannot or that he is “not capable of”.
3. Dysfunctional communication: feelings are not expressed clearly (great assertive difficulty), but complaints, regrets, sorrows and demands (sometimes exaggerated and without limits) are used to communicate with other beings in their environment.
4. Anhedonia: inability to enjoy pleasurable activities.
What does it end up leading to?
A. In self-fulfilling prophecies of his fears of loneliness.
B. They find a co-dependent who they believe manages the relationship even though the depressive ends up managing it.
C They look for the final way out of the problem through the multiple medications that psychiatry offers.
D. Depressives base their actions on excessive effort – without enjoying anything – just as phobics do on control, obsessives do on certainties and people with psychogenic eating disorders on efficiency.
Depression is transstructural and can occur both in a neurotic structure (there is a greater power of resolution), psychopathic, high risk of suicide (especially in people with bipolarity or other personality disorders), and psychotic (high risk of melancholy).
Keep in mind that many times, both in depression and anxiety, the symptoms are egosyntonic (in tune with your being), with the consequent difficulty of overcoming them.
Therefore, therapeutic work must be aimed at transforming these ego-syntonic symptoms into ego-dystonic ones (awareness) so that discomfort and functional anguish appear that make it possible to make the necessary changes to overcome the problem.
Jorge Guareschi. Psychiatrist and psychotherapist. (MN 12,376)
by Jorge Guareschi. Psychiatrist and psychotherapist.
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