Acupuncture What is Depression

Acupuncture What is Depression

In the treatment of depression with acupuncture, depression is considered a mood disturbance characterised by feelings of sadness, despair, and discouragement resulting from some personal loss or tragedy. The feelings are normally proportionate to the loss.

It can also be an abnormal emotional state marked by inappropriate or exaggerated feelings of sadness, melancholy, dejection, worthlessness, emptiness, and hopelessness that are out of proportion to reality.

These unconcealed manifestations are extremely variable. They range from a slight lack of motivation, an inability to concentrate, to severe physiologic alterations of body functions and may represent symptoms of a variety of mental and physical conditions.

Apart from mood or emotional disorders, depression can also be a syndrome of related symptoms associated with a particular disease or a specific mental illness.

Depression can be put forward as neurotic or psychotic. It is neurotic when the precipitating cause is an intra-psychic conflict or a traumatic situation or event that is identifiable, even though the person is unable to explain the overreaction to it.

On the other hand, the condition is psychotic when there is severe physical and mental functional impairment caused by an unidentifiable intra-psychic conflict.

Hallucinations, delusions, and confusion concerning time, place and identity are usually reported.

The types of depression include:

Agitated depression

Anaclitic depression

Involutional melancholia

Reactive depression

Major depressive episode

Retarded depression, and also

Bi polar disorder

What are the causes and how is depression expressed?

The origin of depression can be:

genetic,

pharmacologic,

endocrinal,

infectious,

nutritional,

neoplastic, or

neurologic.

Depression can be expressed through a wide range of symptoms such as affective, physiologic, cognitive and behavioural manifestations. The varied behaviours represent the complex actions and reactions of the depressed person to stimuli that may be either internal or external.

The behavioural effects can appear as :

aggression or withdrawl,

anorexia or overeating,

anger or apathy, or

any myriad responses.

It is interesting to note that the first three behavioural effects are commonly seen in society today. With obesity or anorexia, for example, there may be a correlation between depression and eating disorders.

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