Depression is characterized by a slower perception process, a decrease in its brightness, difficulty in processing new information, a decrease in volume and difficulty in concentrating attention, a deterioration in its differentiation, and an absent-mindedness. Sometimes there is a special vision distortion, more precisely, its obscurity.
Intellectual processes are inhibited in the depressed state, curiosity and curiosity disappear, ingenuity, resourcefulness, ingenuity are lost, and fresh ideas (“poverty of ideas”) and original solutions do not appear. Quickly there is fatigue from any intellectual activity.
On the thinking of the patient lies the seal of monotony and monotony, it is difficult, the associations are slow. The range of ideas is narrowed, the same complaints sound, stereotypical doubts, and in the slow passage of time, thoughts rotate in the same circle. Fixation on the same thoughts, the inability to get rid of them is like an obsessive state.
For depression is characterized by the predominance of thoughts aimed at the negative side of life, the emphasis on hypochondriacal experiences, dominated by negative ideas about yourself, bad memories, which are difficult to distract.
Patients are convinced that their experiences are inaccessible to people around them, that it is impossible to help them – neither in the present nor in the future, that they are incomplete. Moreover, there is some wariness towards others, mistrust of them, doubts about their honesty and sincerity. The present, the future, and sometimes the past are seen by such people in a black light, they are surrounded by “dark thoughts” of hopelessness.
A depressed patient is often convinced that his suffering is deserved and due to past life errors, that he is guilty and punishable. The desire to find mistakes and sins in one’s past, on the one hand, leads to constant self-accusation, on the other, it can be a cause of particular religiosity.
Constant reproaches themselves in mental and physical ailment, in their moral character. Speech is usually poor in words and slow, the patient does not immediately answer the question, is silent for a long time.
An inadequate assessment of one’s condition is manifested in the belief that the condition is extremely grave, has no positive prospects, and that any treatment will be ineffective.
One of the major authorities in the field of studying depression – A. Beck formulated the theory of depressive thinking, highlighting some of its components: “the flow of negative thoughts” (for example, “I am untenable as the head of the family”), the shift of ideas (the patient is convinced that happy when he is loved by everyone), a number of other “cognitive distortions” typical of a person suffering from depression.
Depression makes it difficult to memorize and assimilate new material, reduces the ability to memorize current events. Concentration of attention weakens, hardly acquired information is not kept in memory, there are forgetfulness, difficulty of concentration. With a large degree of conditionality, it can be assumed that the higher the level of cortisol in the patient’s blood, the smaller the size of the hippocampus, the more pronounced the deterioration of memory. A high concentration of cortisol, first of all, affects the ability to reproduce information extracted from long-term memory.
When depression is a violation of the reproductive and fixative functions of memory. Patients choose from memory situations and events with a negative emotional coloring and develop them in unfavorable dramatic or tragic terms.
Other cognitive areas in patients with depression as a whole may not be disturbed, it is about language, orientation in space, visual and auditory perception.
“Existential deadlock” in case of depression is manifested in thoughts of hopelessness, meaninglessness of life (“there is no point in living further”, “everything is useless”), especially in the long term. With pain and sadness, I recall those moments of life, when everything was fine, happy childhood events.
In severe depression, patients under the influence of mental longing may not find a place for themselves. They constantly change their body position, groan, cry, break their hands, harm themselves, destroy everything that falls under the arm. It is at such moments that suicide attempts are possible. Such behavior is also possible with the predominance of thoughts about his own fault and his own insolvency.
A look at one’s condition as a manifestation of the disease in patients suffering from depression is different. Due to the absence of visible reasons for its development, the tendency for a protracted course, the idea of the presence of a disease may arise. On the other hand, people may not recognize the disease, reproach themselves for lack of will, passivity and indecision. In this case, they are trying to explain the symptoms of depression with psychologically understandable causes, express thoughts about the presence of various somatic or neurological diseases in themselves, not understanding, and sometimes not recognizing that they suffer from depression. However, most patients with depression realize the painfulness of their condition, bizarrely mixing thoughts of illness with ideas of self-accusation: “ill by stupidity, because of a trifle”, “did not have to be treated in the hospital”, “took the wrong medicine”, “did not take the search for the cause of the disease, the “archaeological excavations” relating to the past and all that could be the source of its development.