Dysthymia or dysthymic disorder (chronic depression) is a form of low grade depression which can last for a few years. If you or someone you know is suffering from this affection, you may be interested to find out how to deal with it. Dysthymia is a form of depression that lasts at least two years with out showing improvement which affects around 6% of the population. Different from the clinical depression, this form does not interfere with the abilities and well functioning of a man. It just prevents the person from fully enjoying life. These people often feel disheartened and despairing.
When suffering from dysthymia, you will also encounter two or more of the normal symptoms: poor appetite or overeating; insomnia or excessive sleep; low energy or fatigue; low self-esteem; poor concentration or indecisiveness; and hopelessness. In some cases, dysthymia and major depression can occur together, and this affection is called double depression.
What can be done?
Most of the patients remain untreated of this disorder because the family doctors miss it in their evaluations. However, once it is diagnosed, it can be easily treated with psychotherapy and drugs.
The role of psychotherapy in the treatment
Often, dysthymia is not treated with drugs because it is a long term condition so more kinds of therapists are ready to be of assistance for treating it. Cognitive therapy, interpersonal therapy and solution focused therapy as well as family, group or couples therapy.
Medications
Researches have produced divided opinions about the antidepressants treatment for dysthymia so any prescription that would be made must be based on individual evaluation. In 2003, a medical study came to the conclusion that tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) to be equally effective for dysthymia. While cheaper, TCAs such as imipramine (Tofranil) were more likely to cause side-effects than SSRIs like fluoxetine (Prozac) and sertraline (Zoloft).
What are the available alternatives?
Dysthymia can be treated with a large range of alternative medications and supplements. One of them would be St. John’s wort which has shown improvement of the symptoms in the mild to moderate cases. Yet, a 2005 review founds the evidence of the benefits inconsistent and confusing.
Some encouraging results have been obtained from omega – 3 fatty acids. They can be consumes wither as supplements or as oily fish. For now, they have no known side effects and can be prescribed for treatments but further researches are awaited.
Changes of lifestyle
Dietary supplements have gained importance over the past time. Having a good looking and smelling food may take over suppressed appetite. It may help to include in your diet B vitamins, potassium and zinc. Another thing that may help by reducing their physical and mental effects would be to avoid smoking, drinking and caffeine.
Aroma therapy, acupuncture or other complementary therapies could be of assistance. Insomnia can be fought with the valerian herb and the energy level may be arisen by ginseng.
Also exercising may help restoring the order in eating and sleeping habits. Exercises release endorphins in the body which are responsible for happiness.
Social support
A very important role in treating dysthymia is played by help and support of other people regardless their position or connection. So, friends and family can provide very much support for the suffering person and can help him improve and deal easier with his condition. Nevertheless, it is very helpful to receive comfort from unknown people like in community support groups. Sharing the problems, the needs and the experiences with others like you may help understanding the condition and maybe develop new skills of dealing with it.
Dysthymia and children
The condition is encountered in 5% of the children and 8% of adolescents. Children don’t present the same symptoms as the adults. The main characteristics of children suffering from dysthymia are anger and irritability. Those symptoms can do much harm on their behavior, social skills and education and they may have even further consequences in the adult life setting in place a vicious circle that may trigger major depression one day.
Recovery
It can not be guaranteed that one will fully recover from dysthymia although the rate is as high as 70 percents in a four year period. Yet, once recovered, the treatment should not be neglected because this a recurrent form of depression.
Final word
Many people shame of the effect that diagnosing such a disease will have over their life. They believe that the symptoms of this disorder may be shaken off by themselves and avoid seeking help treating what is treatable.
Never fear of calling your doctor if you have thoughts about death and suicide or if the treatment doesn’t improve the symptoms or even worsens them.
Sebastian Bunten
http://www.articlesbase.com/medicine-articles/understanding-chronic-depression-and-the-options-114385.html
Related posts:
- Any idea to get out of poverty? hard working, good interpersonal skills?
- Any idea to get out of poverty? hard working, good interpersonal skills?
- Don’t Let your Kids Develop Separation Anxiety
- The Widespread Effects of Ptsd
- The Interpersonal Solution to Depression A Workbook for Changing How You Feel by Changing How You Relate
How much free will do we actually have?
This is long, I know. Thanks in advance for your patience.
Much of our behavior is driven by nature and environment. Consider mental disorders, which are undesirable difference in how our brain responds to outside stimuli. Take chronic depression for example: How do you know you or someone else suffers from that disorder? Because their reactions (whether internal or external) to outside stimuli fall within the range described by the description of that disorder. This implies a non-disordered, normal range of prescribed reaction to stimuli. As in, a ‘normal’ person reacts within a certain range, while an ‘abnormal’ (no insult intended) person reacts within a different, often overlapping range.
Many mental disorders are inborn, or a predisposition towards them is, implying that the ‘normal range’ is as well. So, our reactions to outside stimuli depend on the stimulus itself and on our inborn ‘reaction range’. Environment, of course, also plays a part. Most people will not pursue a course of action that is objectionable to their culture or upbringing, unless of course, other priorities override environment i.e. stealing in order to eat. Humans are rational creatures. Our priorities may not always be ordered as they should (by ’should’, I mean to imply a cultural or environmental ‘approved’ list of priorities, like country over self, or employment over entertainment), but we do make rational decisions based on those priorities, whatever they may be.
Now, my cat for example, also has a normal and abnormal ‘reaction range’ prescribed by her instincts and environment. Her sense of self-preservation makes her desire food. If she were wild, she would hunt. Her environment, however, is different. She is a pet, so when she wants food she whines. If she suddenly had to fend for herself, she could. But is that free will? Can her actions (switching to hunting) be considered voluntary when they are necessary for survival? What if we consider what we all know, that she will definitely make the choice to hunt. If the other option is impossible, is her choice voluntary?
When I react to my environment (a description that any decision can be reduced to), what would lead me to believe that my choices are any more voluntary than hers? I find myself unable to think of any decision a human being makes in the course of their life that can not be reduced to environment and that inborn ‘reaction range’, coupled with rational pursuit of priorities (which, are also dictated by environment and inborn traits).
That is, save one. Humans make one decision that animals never do: to suicide. That action goes against our natural inclination to survive and even against most environments (most societies consider it cowardly). Is that all there is to free will? Self-destruction or self-preservation? Keep in mind that self-destructive impulses are not confined to suicide. Staying out too late at the bar and coming to work hung over is self-destructive (and rational, since you pursued your immediate desire to be drunk while sacrificing a longer term desire to be employed).
I know this is really long and I hope I’ve made myself understood. Just bear with me for a little longer: Why do you suppose humans have the ability to make a self-destructive choice, but other animals do not?
Here’s my theory. Some cultures do not have a word for ‘zero’. Thus, they do not have the concept. ‘Nothing’ doesn’t occur in nature. But, ‘I’ does. Humans have a concept of self, and necessarily ‘not self’. We also have an advanced concept of death. I f we can comprehend both ’self’ and ‘death’, it follows that we can comprehend ‘death of self’. Is that what gives us our unique ability to act contrary to instinct? And, can free will truly be reduced to that one choice, between self-destruction and self-preservation?
Thanks for reading all this. What are your thoughts??
I DID trim it down. I couldn’t shorten it more without sacrificing understanding. It only really takes a minute to read.
I choose not to read questions when they are this long. Do us a nice favor and trim it down to essentials.
References :
that was a lot to process! and i’m not good at processing so if i’m way out their with my responce please forgive me! I’ll do what i know and what my brain allows me to respond to!
one thing about the hunting vs the whining
one will do what is natural to survive! a normal healthy human will do what it takes to survive grant you one with "mental illiness" might kill self to save self from extra work to stay alife or one may feel quality of life isn’t up to their standards.. Go backpacking and see for yourself!
free will to me is being able to set your morals being able to pick your proitories free will is picking to be rational or not! to me free will is equal to choice!
we have choices everyday to make.. do you do what is socially right or do you fallow what you perosnally want?
those who follow what they personally want tend to use more free will in my eyes!
goodness i hope i make sence!
sorry i don’t spell well, i’m lazy, and my latest phrase is
i’m creative with myspelling!
good day
References :
I think that it is because over our history we have been literally forced out of our proper place (the equilibrium if you want).
We we’re supposed to stay like animals and hunt and survive and that’s about it. But because we now live in cities and are forced to take different course of action to obtain what we want (a car, a job etc) instead of doing what nature intended us to do, which is to simply take it by force, we have also lost our ability to ‘go with the flow’ of nature, like other animals.
Over time I think our brains have adapted to this style of existence and it has had a strange effect on the race and how we differ from other creatures.
To sum it up, I think that the main reason we have such free-will is because we have been forced to at times ignore free-will, then realize it, then harness its power like never before.
It brings to mind the old saying "You don’t know what you have got, until its gone". Then when you get it back you understand it a hell of alot more
References :
You began by saying "much of our behavior is driven by nature and environment". It is quite plausible to consider that ALL of our behavior is driven by nature and environment – in which case, "free will" would be non-existent. Everything that happens in Nature is a dynamic process of cause-and-effect determined by physical laws. What reason do we human creatures have for supposing that we have something extra, called "free will"? Are not the "decisions" underlying my actions from moment to moment fully determined by my thoughts and feelings, my predisposition AT THAT MOMENT, which is in turn fully determined by my genetic inheritance and all my experiences up to that moment? In what way then am I different from your cat? Or even an inanimate natural process?
Levi Strauss had something interesting to say about his own psychological make up:
"I never had, and I still do not have, the perception of feeling my own personal identity. I appear to myself as a place where something is going on, but there is no ‘I’, no ‘me’. Each of us is a crossroads where things happen. The crossroads is something passive; something happens there. A different thing, equally valid, happens elsewhere. There is no choice, it is just a matter of chance."
Is self-destruction really an act of "free will", as you suggest? Is it really a decision to "go against one’s instincts"? I think not. It seems to me that there is a self-destructive INSTINCT that intervenes as a last resort when circumstances have become intolerable, or in cases of heroic self-sacrifice.
Thank you for an intelligent question. It was a refreshing surprise to come across it while surfing the usual mindless twaddle on Yahoo Answers, for amusement…
References :