What is the Depression?
Mood is that aspect of psychic activity that gives affective coloring to everything that is experienced in everyday life, it is an emotion that colors the perception of the world.
Depression can be of different types, and each presents characteristic symptoms. This is why depressive disorders are divided into two large groups, which in turn present subgroups:
- Depressive disorders ("unipolar depression"), which include:
- major depressive disorder: it may present as a single (isolated) or recurrent episode (at least two episodes);
- dysthymic disorder: characterized by the recurrence of depressive episodes of minor severity compared to the greater ones. During the period of illness the patient is never in a normal mood for more than two consecutive months;
- depressive disorder not otherwise specified: "residual" category that does not meet the criteria listed above. An example is premenstrual dysphoric disorder.
- Bipolar disorders : they occur with one or more episodes of mania, or with mixed episodes, or of hypomania, and are always accompanied by a major depressive episode. They understand:
- bipolar I type disorder: characterized by at least one episode of mania or mixed;
- bipolar type II disorder: never characterized by mania but always by hypomania;
- cyclothymic disorder: has a minimum duration of 2 years, with no well-being phases lasting more than two months and in which depressive episodes are never of a severity similar to that of major or manic episodes, so they are always hypomanic.
The difference between depressive disorders and bipolar disorders is the absence, in the first group, of episodes of mania, mixed or hypomania.
By clicking on the different expressions of the disease it is possible to know the typical symptoms of the various forms of depression.
