Depression
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 1997 Jan / Feb VOL VI NO 1.
Dr Satish Rana
Depression is the psychological equivalent of a fever. It is an emotional disorder. There is no individual on this earth who is exempt from depression.
The developed countries top the list of those who suffer from mental depression. In developing countries the metropolitan are the ones where people suffer from this disease. According to the survey conducted all over the world recently, it has been learnt that working partners are more prone to depression. In India, more males than females suffer from it, while in the west, females lead the list.
Mental depression is characterized by altered moods. There is definitely a loss of interest or taste in all usual activities of the sufferer, be it office work, sex, food studies, exercise, club activities, friend-circle etc. Patient is often found neglecting the known hobbies and habits of entertainment. Diagnostically, it is usually preferred that there should be poor appetite, significant weight-loss, insomnia or hypersomnia, restlessness decrease in sex drive along with the presence of loss of energy and fatigue. And if the feeling of worthlessness, self reproach, a feeling of guilt, decreased ability to think and concentrate, recurrent thought or attempt to suicide also accompany the above symptoms for at least two weeks then it confirms the diagnosis.
Depression usually starts off with long periods of unhappiness and dissatisfaction in the individual's life. Pessimism ie, negativism, is a strong symptom of the ailing mind. A feeling of worthlessness, an inferiority complex settles in the mind which the patient is aware of put helpless to remedy. Patient forgets happiness and sadness takes its place. Patient is always restless and knows not how to relax. Averse to attending marriage parties, lack of interest in his family and wife, lack of interest in oneself, hopeless about recovery and finds suicide to be the only answer to his problems.
Depression can be classified in two main groups:-
1. Neurotic i.e. reactive
2. Psychotic i.e. Endogenous
In reactive or neurotic depression, there must be some known cause for the depression in reaction to which the depression has no apparent cause. It occurs within the brain from some internal causes.
Definite cause of depression is yet to be ascertained. In different individuals at different occasions one event plays the role of precipitating cause. For a sensitive individual even minor events play havoc so as to create depression. Prolonged misbehaviour of a habitual drunk husband can become a cause of depression for a wife belonging to a very sensible family. A discord between the subordinate and the officer or a mother-in-law's strict and hard behaviour towards a newly wed daughter-in-law can result in depression in one of the partners or even in some cases in both the subjects. In short, reasons like disappointment in love, death of child, death of the life partner, a heavy monetary loss, failure in business, a faithless life partner, failing health, suffering from incurable diseases like AIDS, Cancer, Thalassaemia etc too can play the role of exciting and maintaining cause for the depression.
RUBRIC - wise arrangement of the symptoms of depression (Vol I by Barthel)
Absorbed, misfortune imagines
Aliments from, discords between chief and subordinate
Aliments from, disappointment
Aliments from, friendship deceived,
Aliments from, honour wounded,
Aliments from, indignation
Aliments from, pecuniary losses.
Aliments from, punishment
Aliments from, rudeness of others.
Aliments from, scorn, being scorned.
Climacteric period agg. [depression of climacteric period]
Death, desires
Death, thoughts of
Delusions, deserted, he is
Delusions, friend, affection of, has lost.
Delusions, friendless, he is
Delusions, wife is faithless, run away from him, will.
Delusions, life of
Despair, love, from disappointed.
Despair, recovery of.
Despair, religious, of salvation
Disconcerted
Discouraged
Estranged from his family
Forsaken feeling, beloved by, his parents, wife, friends,
Feels not being
Forsaken feeling, isolation, sensation of
Helplessness
Guilty, feeling of [delusions, criminal, he is.]
[anxiety, conscience, of]
Loathing, life, at
Loathing, life, at, injury, must restrain herself to prevent doing herself.
Sadness, despondency, dejection, mental depression,
Gloom, melancholy.
Sadness, age, in old.
Sadness, alone, when.
Sadness, business, when thinking of
Sadness, causeless.
Sadness, criminal, as if greatest
Sadness, darkness, in.
Sadness, disappointment, from.
Sadness, disease, from a
Sadness, grief, after.
Sadness, haemorrhoids, suppressed, after
Sadness, impotence, with
Sadness, insult, as from.
Sadness, misfortune, as if, after
Sadness, music, from.
Sadness, puberty, in
Sadness, sighing, with.
Sadness, sits in a corner and does not want to have anything to do with the world.
Sadness, sleep and never to wake, would like to
Sadness, sleeplessness, from sadness
Sadness, sleeplessness with
Sadness, suicidal disposition, with
Sadness, talk indisposed to
Sadness, telling it to somebody, amel. after.
Sadness, thinking of his position, on.
Sadness, vexation, after
Sadness, weep, cannot
Sadness, weeping, am. after
Sadness, wrong way, as if everything done in
Reproaches himself.
Reserved
Resignation.
Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you sit quietly, may alight upon you.
-Nathaniel Hawthorne
