Major Depressive Disorder and Its Prevention

Psychology is a broad field, which encompasses important elements, which are crucial in understanding human behavior and interaction. Both social and psychological issues influence human behavior. There are various conditions, which influence an individual wellbeing. Major depressive disorder is one of the major psychological issues, which influence the wellbeing of many individuals. It is defined as a mood disorder, which is causes persistent sadness. It affects both physical and emotional wellbeing it is caused by a number of factors with key among them being sustained stress. Various interventions that have been highlighted are important in developing a better understanding on major depressive disorder and how it can be effectively engaged. This paper provides an in depth analysis on major depressive disorder and how it can be effectively prevented.

Background information

Major depressive disorder is a serious psychological problem, which is affecting many people currently across the world. It results from sustained and untreated depression, which many individuals tend to assume. Young adults are more likely to develop major depressive disorder. Based on the findings of the report published in the Journal of American association women are more likely to suffer major depressive disorder at 26% compared to men at 12%. The current statistics show that 14 million adults in the United States have been directly affected by the major depressive disorder. This represents about 6.7% of the total population. This is a very high percentage because major depressive disorder can be effectively controlled before it escalates based on the development of better control measures (Bockting et al., 2014).

Problem statement

Many people tend to assume the impact of depression majorly based on the understanding that stress is part of life and it is very difficult to detect when stress has escalated to depression in a given individual. Seeking medical advice regarding individual wellbeing is an important consideration, which can be put in place to ensure that an individual is positively engaged. Major depressive disorder is a condition that can be significantly countered if there is a better engagement among individuals. There are some factors which are likely to lead to a major depressive disorder is an individual is not engaged. These factors include sustained stress, divorce or serious illness such as chronic illness, which drain an individual in thoughts making it difficult for them to recover. These are issues, which can be controlled through the development of better interventions across different environments. The objective of addressing major depressive disorder is to sensitize the society about the ability to control the disorder and create an understanding of major interventions, which can be incorporated to develop a positive understanding of the major depressive disorder (Young & Cashwell, 2016).

Psychological perspectives

There are different psychological considerations, which can be used to provide an understanding of the major depressive disorder and its overall influence within the environment. Different psychological perspectives that are put in place provide a different understanding of the issue at hand, which creates a better environment where it is possible to have a crucial understanding on the issue from different psychological perspectives. Psychological perspectives provide different environments under which human interactions can be explained and ensure that there is a positive understanding of the essential elements that need to be considered in order solve the problem. The two perspectives that are considered in this case will include behavioral and cognitive psychological perspective.

Behavioral perspective

Behavioral psychology perspective focuses on understanding the well-being of an individual or a given issue based on their interaction. Psychologists believe that behavior is formed from the interaction of an individual with the environment. The environment, in this case, forms social environment under which an individual is engaged. The social interaction, in this case, creates diverse forms of understanding which results into a varied reflection on individual wellbeing. Developing stress within a social environment is mainly as a result of negative interaction within a social environment. The response to a given stimuli is crucial in defining the overall well-being of an individual. Therefore behavioral, psychological perspective focus on understanding the key underlying elements, which help in defining the overall well-being of an individual. Major depressive disorder, in this case, can be said to form as a result of negative engagement by individual based on their response to certain stimulus (Bockting et al., 2014).

To have a better understanding of a mental health situation, it is important first to understand the cause of the issue, and thus behaviorism theory provides the platform needed to effectively understand the whole process and develop the best treatment model that fits the situation. It is important to understand that there are different causes of mental health and thus it is very difficult to find a solution to a problem that has not been significantly analyzed.

Cognitive psychology perspective

This psychological perspective aims at creating an understanding of how people perceive, remember, think and solve problems. Cognitive psychology acknowledges the existence of the internal mental state and its overall critical influence on how an individual can perceive things. It also highlights that memory structures determine how information is perceived. Individuals tend to have different ways on how they perceive things. The manner in which an individual can perceive a given aspect plays an important role in informing how they tend to act (Young & Cashwell, 2016).

Attention and perception play a very crucial role in defining the reaction of an individual. The difference in reaction to the same thing is mainly explained by the difference in attention, which influences the perception and thus creating a varied environment on the reaction process of a given aspect. Attention is a selective response to stimuli while perception is the consideration or the understanding an individual has towards certain aspects within a given context. To effectively understand the aspect of attention and perception, it is important to consider certain key experiments, which are vital in developing a better-engaged environment. Cognitive psychological perspective provides a clear environment where major depressive disorder development can be understood. The disorder utilizes the negative perception that has been made regarding a given stimuli. It is very important to develop a greater focus on the underlying issues in determining the mental state of an individual within a given environment (Shea, 2016).

Review of literature on major depressive disorder

Slavich and Irwin (2014) assert that treatment of Major depressive disorder involves both pharmacological processes and non-pharmacological processes. Different interventions can be put in place to control the impact of the disorder. Pharmacological interventions, which have been put in place, provide a short-term solution with major side effects, which are detrimental to the overall health of an individual in the long term. The findings from the study highlight that there is the need to emphasis on non-pharmacological intervention, which concentrates on controlling an individual behavior and tendency to adopt negative understanding on issues based on the outlined considerations. Physical exercise has been highlighted as major interventions which play a key role in positively engaging an individual suffering from the major depressive disorder. Physical exercises help individuals in cooling down as well as burning extra calories, which help an individual remain alert and positively engaged. Counselling sessions provide primary intervention where an individual can provide crucial information where critical assessment is done to engage an individual by evaluating their conditions (Slavich & Irwin, 2014).

Zarate et.al (2013) piloted a randomized add-on trial of an N-Methyl-D-Aspartate antagonist in the treatment of treatment-resistant bipolar depression. The study based on the existing therapies of bipolar depression, which have lagged in the onset of action. The randomized trial sought to determine whether an N-Methyl-D-Aspartate receptor antagonist produces rapid antidepressant effects in the subjects with bipolar depression. A randomized placebo controlled double blind crossover add-on study. The results revealed that from the first 40 minutes depressive symptoms in subjects receiving ketamine compared with placebo. The patients with treatment resistant bipolar depression, robust and rapid antidepressant effects results from a single intravenous dose of N-Methyl-D-Aspartate antagonist (Zarate et.al, 2013).

Dumas et.al (2014) states that the Human Dynamic Clamp is a very important model that provides important consideration into the understanding of human interaction. It is a powerful model because it provides a very significant opportunity to explore a parameter ranges and perturbations that are not very much accessible among human interaction. The experiments conducted provided a significant understanding of human behavior and the interaction between human behavior and social interactions. The experiments show that the range of social interactions is much higher because of bidirectional coupling. The process of generalizing findings indicates how the human dynamic clamp can be exploited as a general model to investigate social interactions (Dumas et.al., 2014).

According to Christakis and Fowler (2013), human behavior tend to vary based on the social environment under which they interact. Human behavior can be defined in a number of ways where there is better understanding on the underlying issues, which help in creating an effective environment for better behavior understanding.Social interactions play a very significant role in influencing the overall engagement between individual with different character traits. Negative interactions within a given place have a detrimental influence on the overall wellbeing of an individual, which could lead stress. In most cases, these issues are considered normal without putting into consideration the overall impact of continued stress to an individual (Christakis & Fowler, 2013).

Van der velden et.al (2015) focuses on a systematic review on mechanisms involved in mindfulness based cognitive therapy in the treatment of recurrent major depressive disorder in individuals. The review findings were able to determine that preliminary studies reviewed indicated that changes in attention, memory specificity, emotional reactivity and momentary positive and negative might be crucial in developing an understanding on how mindfulness based cognitive therapy exerts its clinical effects. Therefore, the findings from the study show that mindfulness based cognitive therapy could work effectively based on the MBCT model that are developed (Van der velden et.al., 2015)

Conclusion

Major depressive disorder can be controlled considering the fact that it is caused by social interaction and behavioral aspects of individuals. It is important to understand that depressive disorder requires affective treatment plan, which is developed based on critical assessment of an individual situation since every patient’s condition is influences differently, which makes it difficult to have a successful group therapy, which focus on a number of issues simultaneously. Putting into consideration crucial measures, which focus on the distinct issues faced by major depressive disorders, ensures that the treatment plans put in place are successful.