The Psychological Aspects of Depression

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Rachel Blackston and I am here on behalf of expert village and I am a private practice mental health counselor in Orlando Fl and I work at a private practice called twelve stones counseling center and it's located in Oviedo, Florida, and I am here to talk about how to deal with depression over the holidays. As I mentioned earlier there are three main aspects or types of depression. There's psychological depression, circumstantial depression and there's biological depression. But, because I am a mental health counselor, I am going to talk mostly about psychological aspects that are underneath the depression. It's really important that we look at the under lying root causes of depression. For example, if I had a plant I could prune the plant, I could water the plant, I could put miracle grow in the plant but if this a root-bound plant, if the plant is out grown the pot that its, so if the roots are all clumped together, then the plant is not going to survive. So, with depression things like exercise, nutrition, there are coping strategies for depression a lot of times depression has underlying issues. For many people it is unresolved emotional issues from their past. For example, some people may have anger that they haven't dealt with and so depression becomes anger towards inward. Others may have grief that they've never dealt with. For example, a child who lost a parent at a very young age and has never had the room to grieve that, that may show itself as depression. So while there's coping strategies for depression its also really important that look at the root causes. I wanted to talk a little bit about the relationship between depression and physical illness. According to depression.com serious medical conditions such as HIV and cancer can contribute to depression partly because of the stress that they put on the immune system. Secondly, depression can be worsened by other physical conditions. And finally I want to mention that there is certain medications that can lead to depression. So, again its important that you check with your medical doctor about how depression can be related to other physical illnesses."