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ESMelancholy
Melancholy is a state of mind characterized by a sad mood, general depression, depression, sadness and a decline in strength. The state under consideration is accompanied by a sense of its own worthlessness, worthlessness, uselessness, alternated with a bleak state of mind. At the same time for the occurrence of this condition may not exist a good reason. The term previously described was called "dark insanity." Also, melancholy means one of four types of temperament. In other words, it is a congenital feature of the attitude and adaptation to society. Melancholic people are typical introverts, they are well alone with their own personality, they are hypersensitive, they experience any events deep in their souls.
The term under consideration implies one of the variations of mental disorder. The word melancholy itself means gloomy despondency, melancholy, kruchinu, gloomy insanity, and is translated as black anger.
The essence of mental transformations in melancholy is in the individual being in a sad, dejected state. The surrounding reality does not motivate or insufficiently motivates such individuals, and their mental activity is accompanied by unpleasant torment. At the same time in the melancholic consciousness prevailing ideas corresponding to the dull state of mind. Memories and fantasies of such people are focused only on unpleasant images and events. They consider everything in a gloomy tone.
Nothing can bring joy to them, their own existence is made into a burden, their interest in activities weakens or disappears completely, they become sedentary, indifferent to reality and their own hobby; they consider death, which is often achieved by suicide, as the best way out.
Often on the foundation of sadness and indifference sprout feelings and absurd delusions germinate. As for the latter, they are mostly self-incriminating: melancholic individuals blame themselves for this or that misconduct or the crime committed, for example, against religion, morality. They can also ascribe to themselves completely monstrous acts, expecting for them a similar monstrous punishment. In addition to delusional self-incrimination ideas, delusions of persecution or denial are also noted: people disappear, there is nothing more, peace and existence are completed.
A special kind of cases are when the delusion is primarily hypochondriacal in nature. For example, melancholic people feel that the holes in their body are overgrown, their guts are rotting, and they themselves have become wooden, transformed into an animal. Deceptions of feelings, mainly in terms of content, correspond to the ideas of delirium: melancholic hear curses, rattling of chains, children's moans, see preparations for torture, the corpses of relatives, smell the sulfur, carrion.
Patients at times are subject to bouts of increased angst, interspersed with motor agitation and fear. Under the influence of such attacks, melancholic sometimes get into a rage.
Melancholia is often accompanied by a deterioration in nutrition, which occurs either as a result of a decrease in appetite, or because of a disturbance in the processes of assimilation, metabolism and blood circulation. Also, often the disorder is accompanied by persistent insomnia.
Melancholy can be a separate ailment or be a sign of a different more serious illness. It can occur with mania, periodic insanity. It is characterized by a short course. When melancholia is a separate violation, it is characterized by duration.
Today, the described disorder is classified as “melancholia without the presence of psychotic symptoms,” and is a symptom of an illness called “a depressive episode of a severe degree without psychotic symptoms.” The alternative name for this ailment is “agitated depression”, “vital depression”.
Increasingly today in medical practice, instead of the previously popular term “melancholia”, the term “depression” is used, and melancholia in simple words, that is, in everyday life, often means a sad, dull, depressed mood.
Melancholy: Causes
Quite a frequent cause, leading to the violation in question and not amenable to self-correction, is an innate mental peculiarity. Often, future mothers lead an unhealthy way of being, prone to negative thinking, which can lead to a phenomenon in the world of a baby with a melancholic variation of temperament. Scientists have found that even in the intrauterine formation, the fetus feels a parental attitude, external problems.
Also, studies have shown that temperament can pass by genetic means. If both parents are melancholic, then it is likely that this type of temperament will be passed on to their descendant. However, individuals with a “pure” type are not found in the world. Belonging to the type of temperament is determined by the leading property.
Sometimes people can turn into melancholic due to unfulfilled personal aspirations. For example, with a long unsuccessful job search. Such an obstacle will only harden a strong individual, while a weak melancholic person will make the weak. It is easier for them to blame fate than to try to overcome ordinary everyday problems.
The mental agony and unconventional views on everyday situations, differing from the judgments of the so-called "adequate" people, can also give rise to the described disorder. For example, an individual's conviction in the existence of life on the moon can often cause a number of ridicule and phrases of ironic content on the part of “knowledgeable” subjects. And this often leads to a feeling of worthlessness.
The causes of melancholy are often hidden in childhood. Parent hypertext, difficulties in interaction among peers, the failure to take place in the school team - all this can provoke the appearance of a closed melancholy.
Socio-ethical phenomena that are associated with ideological issues also lead to depressed mood and the appearance of the disorder being described. For example, the lack of faith in the conscientiousness of people, their disinterestedness, social progress make the individual skeptic and plunge into a depressive state.
Spiritual development gives rise to thoughts about death and fragility, the realization that any road will always lead to a lethal end. Such dark thoughts are manifestations of melancholic depression.
Harmful addiction in the literal sense destroys the psyche, which causes the gloom of thoughts, unwillingness to live.
Gambling is also a form of destructive addiction. In addition to the endless thoughts about where to get the next amount of the stakes, the person also expects an inevitable big loss. Therefore, gamblers are usually unhappy, irritable, constantly in a depressed state. Against the background of such a pessimistic mood, melancholy develops.
A number of mental deviations are accompanied by gloomy thoughts and decadent attitudes. Here melancholy will be a concomitant manifestation.
Often, natural aging gives rise to melancholy, since an aging subject cannot reconcile with his own changed physical condition: he is no longer so quick and clever, many ailments have appeared, endurance has decreased. All this negatively affects the mood, as a result of which a person begins to overcome melancholy.
A prolonged illness, in addition to being exhausted psychologically and physically tired, also gives rise to heavy thoughts and leads to the development of a depressive, melancholic state.
Fears are considered to be frequent factors causing the described deviation. Constantly being in fear weakens the person psychologically, which leads to despondency and melancholy.
When an individual suffers an inferiority complex, has lost faith in his own strength, blindly surrenders to the whirlpool of fate, considers himself worthless, this depresses his mood, which causes mental anguish and leads to melancholy.
Unrealized passion, unrequited feeling also creates a depressive state.
Deep emotional manifestations of a negative orientation, such as: anger, envy, greed, decompose the soul, often plunging into depression.
Also exists in everyday life such a thing as autumn melancholy. Frequent prolonged rains, low sky, covered with a gray haze of clouds, gusty wind, mud, damp and slush, reduced daylight hours, the almost complete absence of bright sunlight - all this has a negative effect on people's emotional mood. This is where the phenomenon of melancholy, caused by the change of season, arises.
Melancholy: Symptoms
The disorder in question is manifested by sustained baseless fear, self-criticism and self-destruction. If this deviation is not corrected, it can lead to suicidal attempts.
The disorder in question is manifested by sustained baseless fear, self-criticism and self-destruction. If this deviation is not corrected, it can lead to suicidal attempts.
- hypotension, which is found in a steady bad mood, looping on the negative, unhappy experiences, the individual is unable to tune in to positive communication, constantly reflects on his emptiness, against the background of this, suicidal thoughts arise;
- lethargy and apathy, which are characterized by a lack of strength, manifest themselves in absolute indifference, indifference to everything (such an individual can not be pulled to have fun, for example, in a cinema, for him the most important thing is to dig in his own mental closet);
- a sense of guilt (the patient reproaches himself for everything, even in his own birth);
- creation of difficulties from scratch (for example, it is difficult for a person to go to the store because it is necessary to get dressed before that);
- inhibition of actions (a person thinks over a deed for a long time before committing it);
- the constantly present desire to sleep, to cope with the desire to sleep can not sleep and full;
- reduced concentration (thoughts, as if in a "separation", it is difficult for such individuals to concentrate).
Other signs of melancholia include:
How is melancholy different from depression?
K. Jaspers attributed depression to abnormal affective states of the asthenic order. He classified melancholy as an independent specific symptom of anomalous affective disorder. However, such symptoms are characterized by schizophrenia-like manifestations, however, is not identical to schizophrenia.
Modern science treats depression as a mood disorder, but melancholy is considered as a sign of endogenous depression. Mostly the term is used in cases of significant manifestations of a depressive state. Even P. Gannushkin calls such patients "constitutional depressive."
Today, the term “melancholia” is considered obsolete, and as a result, it was replaced by the notion of “depression”, leaving as a variation “melancholic depression”, which differs from agitated depression with manifestation of aggression and signs of anger.
Thus, the two terms considered are actually level, regardless of their literal meaning, which reveals the essence. So melancholy is literally interpreted as “black bile or anger”, but it means sadness, depression, depression, and depression - deepening, depression or suppression.
Consequently, the first term states the characteristic prolonged state of mind and the physiological characteristics that accompany it, and the second one speaks of a decrease in mood, and then general condition.
The concept of "depression" previously did not exist. All the characteristic manifestations of the disease today called depression used to be referred to melancholy. Medieval healers viewed it as a violation of mental processes and coincided in the beliefs that melancholy is caused by black bile.
A bit of logic in this theory is, because at a high concentration of bile its yellow-green color can darken. And the accumulation of bile occurs due to the violation of its outflow due to dyskinesia.
According to the statistics of psychosomatic medicine, the described stagnation occurring in the gallbladder, are observed in suspicious, touchy, highly suspicious individuals, characterized by viscosity of mental processes and suffering from auto-aggression.
With melancholy against the background of a dominant specific state (which can be generally described as “dull”), there is a special mood reflecting mental processes. Whereas, with depression, the actual mood disorder gives rise to a certain state and psychosomatic phenomena.
Thus, in order to see the difference between the two concepts under consideration, it is necessary to indicate what is mood and what is a state.
So, the mood is a general characteristic of the emotional background of the individual at a particular moment, and the state is the mood in the individual, the original nuance of human existence. Consequently, it can be concluded that the causes of melancholy are in a different sphere and deeper than the causes of depression. This sphere is more significant in its effects on man. That is why, to this day, people are interested in how to deal with melancholia, and not how to eliminate depression, if they feel lonely even in a circle of loved ones, if they live in constant fear of being.
Depression is always born on the background of a serious psychotrauma or stress (loss of a loved one, an incurable disease). A depressed individual does not want anything because of a certain event.
The psychosocial cause of melancholy is either not so obvious, or it is concomitant, in other words, it does not determine the true melancholy that can be detected at an early age even in active and externally cheerful people. However, this optimism is only an external mask.
Depression is easily diagnosed, showing up in the failure of the emotional sphere, loss of activity and decrease, suppression of the libido. This generates a sharp decline in immunity.
Melancholy, defined as a mental illness, is felt as a special state of a person’s general mood. As a rule, this condition is based on the feeling of loneliness in a collective of people, freezing the fear of the Universe, derivative fears and anguish. This condition is characterized by persistence. It releases individuals only for a small period.
With depression, there is always some loss (death, bankruptcy, infirmity). As a result, interest in the world is lost.
In case of melancholy, self-denial of love is the result of the fear of death. At the same time, the person continues her unsuccessful searches, since everything is going wrong, the people are wrong. Melancholic feels thirst for love, but he is afraid to love himself. Any proposed sense of the expected does not match, and therefore rejected. However, the melancholic parameters of the expected are unknown. Then an interest in a pitiful world and empty of itself is formed and strengthened. From here comes sadness and longing. Self-denial is the negation of the world.
In depression, a generally self-deprecating attitude arises from a rejecting attitude of certain individuals or a particular system.
Depression is characterized by loss of beauty and order (in the world, relationships). Melancholy in its turn lies in the admiration of man deformity.
For a number of individuals, depression can transform into melancholy, but the latter can never be simplified to the level of depression.
Melancholy: Treatment
First of all, in order for melancholic to change his own vital attitude, it is recommended to create for him benign conditions of life: his dwelling should be warm and aired, the air should be clean and comfortably humid. It is advisable to provide the room with indoor plants that have a pleasant appearance.
Often in the treatment of any mental disorders used aromatherapy, massage, balneotherapy.
Doctors usually recommend people interested in how to get rid of melancholy, adhere to a strict diet, as well as the daily routine.
After waking up, it is recommended to take a shower, do wellness exercises, including breathing exercises, relaxation exercises and stretching.
A universal medicine is considered a thorough analysis of the reasons that have plunged the individual into a decadent mood.
Along with competent organization of the day, adequate nutrition, exercise and alternative medicine, psychotherapeutic practices are also successfully used.
Today there are many different psychotherapeutic methods aimed at getting rid of depressive and neurotic states. For example, a cognitive-behavioral direction is considered a rather popular method, the meaning of which is to help the melancholic break the vicious circle of negative associations, as well as form positive thinking.
If the above means were useless, then the patient is shown hospitalization in a neuropsychiatric institution, where conditions are created for a complex of procedures that allow to stop the main symptoms of the disease. For this purpose, various pharmacopoeial drugs are usually prescribed that have a psychotropic effect, for example, neuroleptics (suppress the feeling of fear, decrease the response to external stimuli, weaken psychomotor agitation, relieve affective tension, calm down), antidepressants (reduce depression, improve mood, reduce lethargy, eliminate apathy , relieve anxiety and irritability), mood stabilizers (stabilize mood).