Process - Physician - Fraser Health Authority

WHAT CAUSES DEPRESSION?EmotionDepression often begins with feelings of discouragementand sadness after unsuccessful attempts to deal witha difficult life situation. However, as the depressioncontinues, these feelings of unhappiness give way tomore severe and painful kinds of emotional experience.The depressed individual is overcome by a sense ofdespair, a pervasive mood of hopeless misery. A feelingof intense anxiety (physical tension, worry, and asense of impending doom) often accompanies thesedepressed feelings.Some depressed people experience a general sense ofemotional numbness, an inability to feel anything. Itis as though the psychological pain has become sointense that your mind simply switches off youremotions, like a circuit breaker.Remember that depressed people interpret the world inan unrealistically pessimistic way and judge themselvesin a harsh and unfair manner. The emotions they feelare based in large part on this negative way of interpretingtheir lives. If their thoughts about the worldare unrealistic and negative, then their emotions willalso be unrealistic and negative.It may be hard to think about emotions as unrealistic.But imagine a person who firmly believes that airplanetravel is extremely dangerous and that planes are fallingout of the sky frequently. That person will feel veryfrightened when flying. This fear, however, is basedon a false belief about airplane safety and is, therefore,unrealistic and inappropriate to the situation. Similarly,depressed individuals often have beliefs about theworld and themselves that are unrealistic and leadto unrealistic, negative emotions.SELF-CARE DEPRESSION PROGRAM10 ANTIDEPRESSANT SKILLS WORKBOOK