The Physical Nature Of Depression

Depression is categorized as a psychological disorder, and
that's a reasonable classification. Depression often
manifests in a person's thinking. A depressed person will
have a different perspective, a generally more pessimistic
perspective, when considering life circumstances than a
non-depressed person will. Depression, however, doesn't
begin and end with a person's thinking.

Interestingly enough, most of the symptoms of depression
present in physical ways, not psychologically. Some of the
more common symptoms of depression include excessive sleep
patterns or sleeping too little, weight gain or weight
loss, lack of energy, emotional outbreaks, and other
symptoms as well. Considering this symptom list, being
overly emotional is the only symptom that might be seen as
mostly psychological in nature, but even that presents in a
physical way through crying or hostility or whatever.

The labeling of depression as a psychological problem, a
problem of the mind, equates it with mental instability or
weakness in the minds of some. Men in particular seem to be
especially sensitive to being labeled with some form of
mental or emotional disorder. On its face this type of
resistance may not seem overly problematic, but it can
become quite a serious issue.

Resistance to even admitting to possibly being depressed is
naturally going to lead to treatment resistance as well.
Depression doesn't always need to be treated, and can clear
on its own in time. This may be especially true in the case
of a one time meaningful loss, the end of a relationship
for example, or a death. But bouts of depression that
aren't triggered by a significant incident, or depression
brought on by a heavily traumatic event, can become chronic
depression. Chronic depression most always needs
intervention, and without intervention can lead to a person
becoming severely distraught and even suicidal.

Emphasizing the physical nature of depression can diffuse
the stigma of a depression suggestion or diagnosis. This
may be the reason that depression is sometimes attributed
to a chemical imbalance in the brain. While some clinicians
don't like this description, there's significant evidence
that the brains of depressives do have a different make up
than the brains of people who aren't depressed. In other
words, the brain is changed when depression sets in. This
knowledge is what has sparked the development of a host of
depression treatment drugs over the last twenty years or
so, each designed to "fix", in its own way, the depressed
brain.

So depression changes the brain, and could even be said to
imbalance the brain. The alteration of one's brain would
seem to be the epitome a physical problem, so perhaps
depression is more physical than psychological after all.

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Zinn Jeremiah is an online author. Find help for depression
by visiting http://www.hubonline.biz/get-better-now.htm or
http://www.hubonline.biz/healthy-mood.htm .