Trillian's Depression Page
Antidepressants:
 Cyclic antidepressants include tricyclics as well as
amoxapine, marprotiline and bupropion.
MAO inhibitors work by blocking the breakdown of two
potent neurotransmitters, norepinephrine and serotonin, and allowing them to
bathe the nerve endings for an extended length of time.
SSRIs specifically block reabsorption of serotonin.
Psychotherapy:
In general, psychiatrists agree that severely depressed
patients do best with a combination of medications and psychotherapy.
Medications relieve the symptoms of depression quickly, while psychotherapy can
help the patient deal with the illness, easing some of the potential stresses
that can trigger or exacerbate the illness.
Dynamic Psychotherapy:
Dynamic Psychotherapy is based on the premise that human
behavior is determined by one's past experience (particularly in childhood),
genetic endowment and current life events. It recognizes the significant
effects of emotions, unconscious conflicts and drives on human behavior.
Interpersonal Therapy:
Interpersonal Therapy is based on the theory that disturbed
social and personal relationships can cause or precipitate depression. The
illness, in turn, may make these relationships more problematic. IPT helps the
patient understand his or her illness and how depression and interpersonal
issues are related. There is some evidence in controlled studies that IPT as a
single agent is effective in reducing symptoms in acutely depressed patients of
mild to moderate severity.
Behavior Therapy:
Behavior therapy involves activity scheduling, self-control
therapy, social skills training, and problem solving. Behavior therapy has been
reported to be effective in the acute treatment of patients with mild to
moderately severe depressions, especially when combined with pharmacotherapy.
Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT):
The cognitive approach to psychotherapy maintains that
irrational beliefs and distorted attitudes toward the self, the environment and
the future, perpetuate depressive affects and that these may be reversed
through CBT. There is some evidence that cognitive therapy reduces depressive
symptoms during the acute phase of less severe forms of depression.
Examples of Cognitive Distortions in
depressed people:
- ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black and white
categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a
total failure.
- OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a
never-ending pattern of defeat.
- MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it
exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop
of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.
- DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by
insisting they "don't count" for some reason or another. In this way
you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday
experiences.
- JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even
though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.
* Mind Reading: You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting
negatively to you, and you don't bother to check this out.
* The Fortune Teller Error: You anticipate that things will turn out
badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already established
fact.
- MAGNIFICATION (CATASTROPHIZING) OR MINIMIZATION: You exaggerate the
importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else's achievement) or
you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable
qualities or the other fellow's imperfections). This is also called the
"binocular trick."
- EMOTIONAL REASONING: You assume that your negative emotions
necessarily reflect the way things really are: "I feel it, therefore it
must be true."
- SHOULD STATEMENTS: You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and
shouldn'ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be
expected to do anything. "Musts" and "oughts" are also
offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should
statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.
- LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extreme form of
overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative
label to yourself: "I'm a loser." When someone else's behavior rubs
you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him: "He's a goddam
louse." Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is
highly colored and emotionally loaded.
- PERSONALIZATION: You see yourself as the cause of some negative
external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.
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