Mood Disorders

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Mood Disorders
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What are mood disorders?

• Mood Disorders (aka affective disorders)
  psychological disorders characterized by
  emotional extremes.

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Major Depressive Disorder (unipolar disorder)

• A mood disorder in which a person experiences two
  or more weeks of depressed moods, feelings of
  worthlessness, and diminished interest in
  pleasure for no apparent reason.
• The feeling of depression Combine the anguish
  of grief with the sluggishness of jet lag
  (Myers)
• Depression is referred to as the common cold of
  all psychological disorders
• Major depression is the most common mood
  disorder.

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Major Depressive Disorder (unipolar disorder)

• DSM criterion for major depression
• Episode must last 2 weeks or longer
• Depressed, hopeless, discouraged mood
• Loss of interest in pleasure
• Change in appetite
• Insomnia/hypersomnia
• Psychomotor changes ex. agitation and
  retardation of movement and/or thinking
• Decreased energy levels
• Sense of worthlessness
• Impaired ability to think
• Frequent thoughts of death
• Interference in social and/or occupational
  functioning
• Episode is not due to medication

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Major Depressive Disorder (unipolar disorder)

• Major Depressive Disorder occurs in 17 of the
  North American and European populations at some
  point in their lives
• Women are at a much greater risk of developing
  Major Depression than men. (2X)

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Major Depressive Disorder Videos

• What is Depression?
• If you really knew me

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Bipolar Disorder (Formerly called
manic-depressive disorder)

• A mood disorder in which a person alternates
  between the hopelessness and lethargy of
  depression and the overexcited state of mania.
• Manic episode a euphoric, hyperactive, wildly
  optimistic state. Person requires little sleep,
  speech is loud and person is hard to interrupt.
  Person may make irrational decisions during the
  manic episode.
• Manic episode can be used efficiently and fuel
  creativity
• Mood plunges into a depression
• Occurs in about 1-3 of the US Population in men
  and women equally

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Bi-Polar Disorder Videos

• What is Bipolar Disorder?
• Bipolar Disorder-A Documentary
• My personal experience with Bipolar Disorder

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Seasonal Affective Disorder

• Some people experience Seasonal Affective
  Disorder (SAD)
• Only depressed during a particular season,
  usually winter
• SAD is treated with light therapy
• S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder) - YouTube

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Dysthymic Disorder

• Dysthymic Disorder A mood disorder involving a
  pattern of comparatively mild depression that
  lasts for at least two years

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Causes of Mood Disorders

• Psychoanalytic Perspective
• Behaviorist Perspective
• Biological Perspective
• Social-cognitive perspective

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Causes of Mood Disorders

• Psychoanalytic Perspective
• Depression is a product of repressed anger or an
  overly punitive superego
• Behaviorist Perspective
• Mood disorders display a need for/ existence of
  reinforcement (attention or sympathy)

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Causes of Mood Disorders

• Biological Perspective
• Low levels of serotonin or norepinephrine are
  linked to depression
• Norepinephrine is abundant during mania and
  scarce during depression.
• More receptors for acetylcholine is associated
  with bipolar disorder
• Mood disorders are more likely to occur is those
  with reduced development in the frontal lobe,
  hippocampus, or the amygdala
• Major depression and bipolar disorders tend to
  run in families (this may indicate some genetic
  cause)

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Causes of Mood Disorders

• Social-cognitive perspective
• Negative thoughts feed negative moods and
  Negative moods feed negative thoughts
• Martin Seligman (positive psychology) learned
  helplessness. (Dogs strapped in harness study)
• View that the future is out of your control and
  result to depression when undesirable things
  occur
• Depression is growing due to the individualism
  encouraged by our western culture.