Health Sciences 3624A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Depression (Mood), Interpersonal Psychotherapy, Psychiatric Genetics
1 Apr 2020
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Chapter 4 - major depression: the creation of a mythical disease. Because depressed mood is a familiar human experience, it"s formulation as an illness has to be justified. This involves falling back on criteria for severity and persistence. Entertaining pathology doesn"t seem inappropriate when it can lead to self-starvation, bodily malfunction, and suicide. Unless variability can be assessed and understood, the results of research can be inconclusive. Assessment relies significantly on questionnaires or standardised interviews that follow models of psychiatric criteria. Research that has been conducted to this date does not inspire confidence in clinical syndromes that have been identified. Evidence for a disease perspective on extreme moods is genetically based in pathophysiology. If it can be shown that variation in mood is related to environmental factors, the support fora disease concept is decreased. It is likely to be a combination of biological, psychological, and social variables working together.
