The person concerned may consider the possibility of suffering from depression when he/she becomes aware that he/she is suffering from a series of symptoms that have no clear explanation, or that do not justify them with the intensity with which he/she experiences them.
The experience of not being the same person as always, of having a worse character, lack of energy or interest in things that have always attracted him, lack of ability to experience pleasure or negative changes (by excess or defect) of sleep, may be some of the indicators of suffering from a depressive disorder. Especially if there are close relatives who have also suffered from such disorders.
What are the most common symptoms of depression?
The symptoms can manifest themselves in three areas, which in general terms are:
- Emotional: low mood, lack of hope, often tendency to cry, hypersusceptibility, self-deprecation or feelings of worthlessness, decreased interest or ability to experience pleasure, irritability, etc.
- Cognitive: negative thoughts concerning death (sometimes suicide), or tendency to blame oneself unduly for things, feeling of mental dullness, with difficulty in thinking, concentrating or making decisions. What has been called “Bech’s cognitive triad” is usually fulfilled, which consists of a tendency to highlight all the negative aspects of the memories one has (and to “turn off” possible good memories), to perceive and value only the negative aspects of the current life and when thinking about the future, to perceive only the negative aspects, whether reasonably based or not (misfortunes, suffering and failure of any attempt to improve the current situation are expected), etc.
- Physical: sleep disturbances (by excess or defect), changes (by gain or loss) of weight, psychomotor sluggishness (sometimes agitation), loss of energy and easy fatigue, sometimes psychomotor coordination problems (and increased accidentality), etc.
How to measure the severity of the depressive symptoms?
There are psychometric scales and instruments that, based on the patient’s own assessment, try to quantify the intensity of a depressive episode, but they are very unreliable. There are currently no resources that, based on the use of apparatus or analysis, offer clues about the severity of a condition.
Only the assessment of a well-trained professional can detect the intensity of a depressive episode. And it will do so based on the detection of the intensity, frequency and duration of each of the symptoms of the condition and assessing the evolution of these symptoms over time.
Which specialists deal with a severe depression and how to do it? What therapy should be followed?
The specialists in the treatment of severe depression are only psychiatrists, who are the only ones qualified to handle the drugs that must necessarily be used in these serious situations. It is true that the complementary intervention of a properly trained psychologist can be very beneficial. But the possibility of this intervention should be assessed by the psychiatrist, because in some cases it could even be negative at the beginning of the treatment.
As time goes by, the symptoms lessen in intensity and it is convenient to help the patient to recover his ordinary life, then, in my opinion, psychological help becomes more and more useful and necessary, as medication becomes less and less necessary.