Are There Different Types Of Depression

Psychotic Depression: Losing Touch With Reality

Psychosis a mental state characterized by disorganized thinking or behavior false beliefs, known as delusions or false sights or sounds, known as hallucinations doesn’t typically get associated with depression. But according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, about 20 percent of people with depression have episodes so severe that they develop psychotic symptoms.

“People with this psychotic depression may become catatonic, not speak, or not leave their bed,” Halaris says. Treatment may require a combination of antidepressant and antipsychotic medications. A review of 10 studies concluded that it may be best to start with an antidepressant drug alone and then add an antipsychotic drug if needed. Another review, however, published in April 2012 in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, found that the combination of medications was more effective than either drug alone in treating this serious type of depression.

What Are The Kinds Of Depression

Caroline Miller

Depression is a common mental health condition that causes someone to be in a sad or irritable mood for an unusually long period of time. Its normal for children to feel down when bad things happen, but a child with depression doesnt feel better if things change. Children and teenagers who are depressed usually have trouble enjoying things they used to love and have low energy. They might think about or attempt suicide.

Depression usually begins during the teenage years, but younger kids can also be diagnosed. Girls are diagnosed twice as often as boys.

Depression can take a number of different forms. The disorders below are all forms of what experts call unipolar depression. The term unipolar is used to distinguish them from bipolar depression, which involves a combination of extreme lows and highs episodes of depression alternating with episodes of mania and is treated differently from other forms of depression.

What Are The Different Types Of Depression

You might have heard a number of terms used to describe depression. In this section, we explain what some of these terms mean.

What is clinical depression?

Clinical depression is a common term, but it is not a formal diagnosis. People sometimes say clinical diagnosis to just mean they have been diagnosed by a doctor.

What is a depressive episode?

Your doctor might say that you are going through a ‘depressive episode’. This is the formal name that doctors give depression when they make a diagnosis. They may say that you are going through a ‘mild’, ‘moderate’ or ‘severe’ episode.

What is recurrent depressive disorder?

If you have had repeated episodes of depression, your doctor might say that you have recurrent depressive disorder. They may say that your current episode is ‘mild’, ‘moderate’ or ‘severe’.

What is reactive depression?

If your doctor thinks that your episode of depression was caused by particular stressful events in your life, they may say that it is reactive. For example, divorce, job or money worries. This is sometimes separated from an adjustment disorder, where you may struggle with some symptoms of depression because of adapting to a major change in your life. Such as separation from people, retirement or migrating to a new area.

What is a severe depressive episode with psychotic symptoms?

You can find more information about Psychosis by clicking here.

What is dysthymia?

What is cyclothymia?

What is postnatal depression?

What is manic depression?

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How Is Depression Syndrome Treated

Depression can be serious, but its also treatable. Treatment for depression includes:

• Self-help: Regular exercise, getting enough sleep, and spending time with people you care about can improve depression symptoms.
• Counseling: Counseling or psychotherapy is talking with a mental health professional. Your counselor helps you address your problems and develop coping skills. Sometimes brief therapy is all you need. Other people continue therapy longer.
• Alternative medicine: People with mild depression or ongoing symptoms can improve their well-being with complementary therapy. Therapy may include massage, acupuncture, hypnosis and biofeedback.
• Medication: Prescription medicine called antidepressants can help change brain chemistry that causes depression. Antidepressants can take a few weeks to have an effect. Some antidepressants have side effects, which often improve with time. If they dont, talk to your provider. A different medications may work better for you.
• Brain stimulation therapy: Brain stimulation therapy can help people who have severe depression or depression with psychosis. Types of brain stimulation therapy include electroconvulsive therapy , transcranial magnetic stimulation and vagus nerve stimulation .

Personal Factors That Can Lead To Depression

Personal factors that can lead to a risk of depression include:

• family history depression can run in families and some people will be at an increased genetic risk. However, this doesnt mean that a person will automatically experience depression if a parent or close relative has had the condition.
• personality some people may be more at risk because of their personality, particularly if they tend to worry a lot, have low self-esteem, are perfectionists, are sensitive to personal criticism, or are self-critical and negative
• serious medical conditions these can trigger depression in two ways. Serious conditions can bring about depression directly or can contribute to depression through the associated stress and worry, especially if it involves long-term management of a condition or chronic pain
• drug and alcohol use can both lead to and result from depression. Many people with depression also have drug and alcohol problems.

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Ongoing Mood Cognitive Changes May Require Professional Help

Depression is not only hard to endure, it is also a risk factor for heart disease and dementia. “Depressive symptoms can occur in adults for many reasons. If you are experiencing mood or cognitive changes that last for more than a few weeks, it’s a good idea to bring this up with your doctor or consult a mental health specialist to help sort out possible causes,” says Dr. Nancy Donovan, an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.The four most common types of depression are major depression, persistent depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and seasonal affective disorder.

Major depression. The classic depression type, major depression is a state where a dark mood is all-consuming and one loses interest in activities, even ones that are usually pleasurable. Symptoms of this type of depression include trouble sleeping, changes in appetite or weight, loss of energy, and feeling worthless. Thoughts of death or suicide may occur. It is usually treated with psychotherapy and medication. For some people with severe depression that isn’t alleviated with psychotherapy or antidepressant medications, electroconvulsive therapy may be effective.

Mild Depression And Moderate Depression

Mild depression and moderate depression tend to cause symptoms that are similar to severe depression, except these are less extreme.

This doesnt mean that these types of depression are insignificant. Mild and moderate depression can still affect you on a daily basis, although youre more likely to experience small improvements in your symptoms from day-to-day.

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Beyond Treatment: Things You Can Do

Here are other tips that may help you or a loved one during treatment for depression:

• Try to be active and exercise.
• Set realistic goals for yourself.
• Try to spend time with other people and confide in a trusted friend or relative.
• Try not to isolate yourself, and let others help you.
• Expect your mood to improve gradually, not immediately.
• Postpone important decisions, such as getting married or divorced, or changing jobs until you feel better. Discuss decisions with others who know you well and have a more objective view of your situation.
• Continue to educate yourself about depression.

How Are Mood Disorders Treated

Mood disorders can often be treated with success. Treatment may include:

• Antidepressant and mood stabilizing medicinesespecially when combined with psychotherapy have shown to work very well in the treatment of depression

• Psychotherapymost often cognitive-behavioral and/or interpersonal therapy. This therapy is focused on changing the persons distorted views of himself or herself and the environment around him or her. It also helps to improve interpersonal relationship skills, and identifying stressors in the environment and how to avoid them

• Family therapy

• Other therapies, such as electroconvulsive therapy and transcranial stimulation

Families play a vital supportive role in any treatment process.

When correctly diagnosed and treated, people with mood disorders can live, stable, productive, healthy lives.

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Major Depressive Disorder With Psychotic Features

Psychotic depression occurs when an individual has severe depression alongside psychosis. The revisions to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders have changed the name of this condition to major depressive disorder with the specifier with psychotic features.

People with psychosis may have false beliefs or hear or see things that are not happening .

The symptoms of psychotic depression have a theme, such as delusions of guilt, illness, or poverty.

The findings of a suggest that the lifetime prevalence of psychotic depression ranges from 0.351%, with higher rates in older adults.

Atypical Depression: A Misunderstood Type Of Depression

Despite its name, atypical depression is not unusual. In fact, it may be one of the most common types of depression and some doctors even believe it is underdiagnosed.

“This type of depression is less well understood than major depression,” says Halaris. Unlike major depression, a common sign of atypical depression is a sense of heaviness in the arms and legs like a form of paralysis. However, a study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry found that oversleeping and overeating are the two most important symptoms for diagnosing atypical depression.

People with this depression type may also gain weight, be irritable, and have relationship problems. Other features of atypical depression include low mood reactivity and a long-standing pattern of being extra sensitive to interpersonal rejection.

Some studies show that talk therapy works well to treat this type of depression.

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Other Symptoms In Addition To Depressive Symptoms

• Recurring physical or psychological problems due to substance use
• Relationship issues related to substance use
• Disruption in your ability to manage responsibilities
• Taking more substance than you want or mean to
• Unable to cut down

What are the signs of depression in a child?

Children often experience depression as irritability, stomach aches/headaches, and change in behavior. Dr. Wegner

Are There Different Types Of Depression

If you are given a diagnosis of depression, you might be told that you have mild, moderate or severe depression. This describes what sort of impact your symptoms are having on you currently, and what sort of treatment you’re likely to be offered. You might move between mild, moderate and severe depression during one episode of depression or across different episodes.

There are also some specific types of depression:

• Seasonal affective disorder depression that occurs at a particular time of year, or during a particular season. See our page on SAD for more information.
• Dysthymia continuous mild depression that lasts for two years or more. Also called persistent depressive disorder or chronic depression.
• Prenatal depression depression that occurs during pregnancy. This is sometimes also called antenatal depression.
• Postnatal depression depression that occurs in the first year after giving birth.

See our page on postnatal depression and perinatal mental health for more information. The PANDAS Foundation also has information and support for anyone experiencing prenatal or postnatal depression.

Is premenstrual dysphoric disorder a type of depression?

PMDD is a severe form of premenstrual syndrome . Many women experience PMS, but for some women their symptoms are severe enough to seriously impact their daily life. This is when you might receive a diagnosis of PMDD.

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Recurrent Brief Depressive Disorder

Recurrent brief depressive disorder research criteria require meeting major depressive episode criteria, apart from the duration, which should be between at least 2 days but less than 2 weeks. It should occur at least once a month for 12 consecutive months. It must not meet criteria for major depressive episode, dysthymic disorder, mania, hypomania, or cyclothymic disorder.

Postpartum And Perinatal Depression

Postpartum depression refers to depression that develops within the first year of giving birth. It differs from the baby blues, which is a phenomenon that affects of mothers after giving birth.

People with the baby blues experience relatively mild anxiety, fatigue, and sadness that typically persist for before going away without treatment. Postpartum depression, on the other hand, causes more extreme symptoms of depression.

Postpartum depression affects almost 15% of births, with symptoms most commonly appearing within 1 week to 1 month of the delivery. Treatment is usually necessary for those with postpartum depression.

People can also experience depression throughout pregnancy. Doctors use the revised term perinatal depression to describe depression that occurs both during pregnancy and after the birth of the baby.

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Common Types Of Depression

If you or a loved one are struggling with depression, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357 for information on support and treatment facilities in your area.

For more mental health resources, see our National Helpline Database.

When people think about depression, they often divide it into one of two thingseither clinical depression which requires treatment or regular depression that pretty much anyone can go through. As a condition, depression can be a difficult concept to grasp since we refer to it as both the symptom of a condition and a condition itself.

From a medical standpoint, depression is defined as a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of depressed mood or sadness and the often profound loss of interest in things that usually bring you pleasure.

Depression affects how you feel, think, and behave and can interfere with your ability to function and carry on with daily life. There are many different causes of depression, some of which we dont fully understand. Seven of the more common types of depression include the following.

When Does Low Mood Become Depression

We all have times when our mood is low, and we’re feeling sad or miserable about life. Usually these feelings pass in due course.

But if the feelings are interfering with your life and don’t go away after a couple of weeks, or if they come back over and over again for a few days at a time, it could be a sign that you’re experiencing depression. See our page on the symptoms of depression for more information.

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What Are The Different Types Of Mood Disorders

These are the most common types of mood disorders:

• Major depression. Having less interest in usual activities, feeling sad or hopeless, and other symptoms for at least 2 weeks may indicate depression.

• Dysthymia. This is a chronic, low-grade, depressed, or irritable mood that lasts for at least 2 years.

• Bipolar disorder. This is a condition in which a person has periods of depression alternating with periods of mania or elevated mood.

• Mood disorder related to another health condition. Many medical illnesses can trigger symptoms of depression.

• Substance-induced mood disorder. Symptoms of depression that are due to the effects of medicine, drug abuse, alcoholism, exposure to toxins, or other forms of treatment.

Major Depression: A Common Type Of Depression

The most common type of depression? Major depression. About 7 percent of the adult U.S. population has this debilitating mental health condition at any given time, according to the National Institute of Mental Health .

If you’re experiencing major depression, you may feel and see symptoms of extreme sadness, hopelessness, anhedonia or loss of interest in pleasurable activities, lack of energy, irritability, trouble concentrating, changes in sleep or eating habits, feelings of guilt, physical pain, and thoughts of death or suicide and for an official diagnosis, your symptoms must last for more than two weeks. In some instances, a person might only experience one episode of major depression, but this type of depression tends to recur throughout a person’s life.

The best treatment is usually antidepressant medications, explains Dr. Halaris, but talk therapy may also be used to treat depression. And there’s good news: An estimated 80 to 90 percent of people with major depression respond well to treatment.

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What Is Depression And What Are The Symptoms

Depression is not just a feeling of unhappiness or being a bit fed up for a few days – which is common and totally normal.

Those who are suffering from depression can suffer from an immense feeling of sadness that can last for weeks and maybe even months.

Everyone is different and the condition can manifest itself in different ways but is often described as a total disconnect from all feelings of happiness.

The NHS warns against trivialising depression as not a genuine health problem on its website: “Some people think depression is trivial and not a genuine health condition. They’re wrong it is a real illness with real symptoms.”

If you are concerned that you are suffering from depression, you should speak to a doctor immediately.

People tend to wait a long time to report their symptoms but they sooner the issue is reported the sooner people can begin to recover.

If you are worried about a loved one, you can call advice services like Samaritans for free on 116 123.

“Our findings have helped to identify how symptom profiles can be grouped into replicable subtypes of depression, showing that not all patients respond to CBT treatment in the same way.

“We now want to understand which other available treatments work best for patients with each depression subtype to help them to access the most appropriate treatment.

Around 264 people suffer from depression across the world and only half are thought to make a full recovery after treatment.

Depression Can Look Different In Different People :

• Women: Women have higher rates of depression than men. Biological, hormonal, and life-cycle factors are more likely to affect their experience. Women are more likely to experience sadness, worthlessness, and guilt.
• Men: Men with depression are more like to feel tired, irritable, and angry. They are more likely to have trouble sleeping and lose interest in activities they formerly enjoyed. They are more likely to turn to drugs or alcohol and less likely to seek treatment.
• Older adults: Older adults are most likely to have their symptoms overlooked, have less obvious signs, and admit feelings of sadness, grief, or loss. Their depression is more likely to be attributed to medical conditions, such as heart disease.
• Younger children: Younger children may exhibit symptoms of depression by overly clinging to their parents, pretending to be sick, wanting to skip school, and worrying that their parents may die.
• Older children and teenagers: Older children and teenagers with depression are more likely to be irritable, angry, have trouble with schoolwork, or get into trouble at school. They are more likely to exhibit symptoms of anxiety, eating disorders, and substance abuse, along with depression.

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