Depression

Question 1

What are the clinical considerations of depression?

Answer 1

-Depression in children often presents as irritability
-Some youth, especially boys, seem to not like the word “sad” and prefer to describe it as feeling bored, down, blue, or bummed out
-A question about whether life just seems lousy might get at depression underlying irritability or boredom
-Assessment of behavioral etiologies inquires about rates of activity, reinforcement, and social skills
-Assessment of behavioral etiologies inquires about rates of activity, reinforcement, and social skills
-Assessment of cognitive etiology
>What goes through your mind when you feel sad
>Inquiry about causal explanations of negative events
and situations
-Neurobiological etiology is suggested by a family history of depression, prominence of biologically related symptoms, and a lack of evidence for other etiological factors

Question 2

What are the neurobiological etiologies of depression?

Answer 2

-Associated with low levels of serotonin activity at the synapses of neurons that regulate mood, activity, motivation, and response to reward
-Due to low serotonin production but to inefficient transport and abnormal serotonin receptors
-Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) block the reuptake of serotonin at synapses, resulting in its accumulation and more frequent firing of adjacent neurons
-Associated with reduced size and functioning of hippocampus, which regulates hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis → results in chronic elevation of cortisol
-Associated with low levels of left prefrontal cortex activity

Question 3

What are the behavioral etiologies of depression?

Answer 3

-Depressed behavior is characterized by a low overall rate of activity, although there are bursts of agitation or mania in some forms
-Operant perspective provides a simple explanation: depressed people receive a low rate of positive reinforcement which suppresses their behavior in a general way
-Several factors contribute to low rates of positive reinforcement and activity characteristics of depression
>Low energy
>Avoidance of challenging activities
>Pessimism and hopelessness about activities
>Weak social skills, including depressed mood itself,
which leads to rejection

Question 4

What are the cognitive etiologies of depression?

Answer 4

-Depressed people interpret events in pessimistic and self-critical ways
-Underestimate their competence
-Selectively attend to negative stimuli and have better memory for negative than positive content
-Focus on negative elements of situations while focusing less on encouraging elements
-Depressed mood causes depressed cognition, and vice versa

Question 5

Depressive attribution

Answer 5

-Attributed failures more internally and success externally
-Negative events are attributed to large, global causes
-Negative events are attributed to long term, stable factors
-Extract maximum negativity from a given set of undesirable events