What is psychotic depression?
A psychiatric illness marked by the appearance of hallucinations or psychotic episodes is Psychotic or Delusional Depression. It may be confused with schizophrenia, so we’re going to tell you the causes and symptoms of it to know how to identify them.
Psychotic or Delirious Depression is a psychiatric illness affecting one in 250 individuals worldwide. Featuring hallucinations or psychotic episodes, it may be misdiagnosed as schizophrenia.
The patient who comes to the consultation usually shows the symptoms of all disorders together, both depression and psychosis/hallucination. The mind constructs circumstances, entities, and objects that do not occur in real life but that the patient perceives as tangent and present
Causes of psychotic depression
The causes of this disease differ, but we may mention
- Stressful situations: loss, physical or emotional violence
- Chemical brain disorders
- With genetic history
- Side effects of taking drugs
While the figures sound troubling, patients with psychosis family history or serious depression may develop the disease more likely.
How to recognize the symptoms?
Patients suffering from depression observe reality and their surroundings in a skewed way. The attitude to problems is usually pessimistic and the absence of bravery to perform tasks is apparent. They’re all pessimistic. Their habits of eating are modified: they can suffer from anorexia or binge eating disorder. They become touchy, irritable, distracted by everything. They convey desires not to continue living, the uselessness of their lives and/or their little worth; the inclination of their conversations is towards the negative. The pattern of sleep is often altered: they sleep a lot or have long insomnia episodes. He is no longer involved, and chronic fatigue can be found in social and family activities.
Now, as depression worsens towards psychotic episodes or hallucinations, the symptoms can present:
Delusions: The patient believes that people are harmful, chasing them on the street or even hacking their email or smartphone passwords, who want to damage them.
Hallucinations: the patient sounds, senses, photos, listens to actual voices that nobody else can see. They repeat to him that he is useless or allow him to flagellate or try his own life.
How to overcome Psychotic depression
It is very normal that with the world’s best intention, the depressed person is advised to use phrases such as: “cheer up, make an effort,” “you’re like this because you want to,” or you have no excuse to be like this.
However, these types of messages make the person experiencing depression misunderstood and definitely didn’t help them feel better. You don’t want to diminish your condition or reduce your depression to a mere unwillingness issue.
If you feel sad or depressed, and want to escape this situation, follow these three steps:
The first step to resolving depression is educating yourself, understanding what you’re dealing with.
Second, healthy lifestyle habits are essential. Just 35 minutes of aerobic exercise, for example, has been shown to reduce the symptoms of depression substantially.
It is also known that certain foods may cause the development of neurotransmitters such as serotonin, which enhances relaxation and well-being, whereas other foods worsen depressive symptoms.
To conquer depression, work on the beliefs and thoughts that drive this condition is also important. It’s not just about “thinking positive,” it’s about delving into the ill-adapted thoughts that make you see the world through a grey lens and placing more rational and logical thoughts in place.
Treatment of major depression
Cognitive-behavioural therapy: This therapy helps the individual to focus on dysfunctional thinking and measurable behaviour. It’s a form of clinically based therapy that helps us to know what variables (situations, emotions, etc. are the problem’s origin and maintenance. Thus we can recognize which schemes and patterns of thought cause discomfort and behaviour. Cognitive behavioural therapy uses various strategies to recognize and alter these behaviours, including Socratic dialogue, cognitive restructuring, thought-stopping, diversion, calming techniques.
On the one hand, cognitive behavioural therapy encourages current thoughts to be replaced by more positive ones who can change both the mood and the way we behave, becoming more involved. However, it can also function directly from how we behave. If we manage to change our actions while having negative or depressive thoughts, negative thoughts will decrease, and our happiness and well-being will increase.
EMDR is a highly effective recovery method for mood disorders, such as severe depression. Through this procedure, stressful events or conditions that have overcome us on an emotional level may be reprocessed and adaptively integrated, and that can be related to the appearance and maintenance of this pathology. One of the peculiarities of the technique is that we accomplish the improvements at a deeper level, taking fewer sessions, thanks to it. These changes vary from the alteration of the individual’s negative views about himself, others, the future, and a noticeable reduction in symptoms.
Therapeutic Hypnosis
When dealing with depressed patients, Therapeutic Hypnosis is a deep and very successful instrument because through it; one get access to the unconscious processes. It is a clear but powerful way, get the person to turn without suffering certain thinking patterns that activate the symptoms and that, after having tried other forms of treatment, make the issue continue. Thanks to the state of relaxation in which we are in a hypnosis session, our brain works successfully to find more optimistic beliefs that can replace the old ones that create the constant discomfort encountered by people with depression and build a better view of ourselves and the world around us.
EFT (Emotional Liberation Technique)
A technique characterised by stimulation by soft touches” with the fingertips on certain body points is the EFT or Emotional Liberation Technique. TEF helps one transmute the mental strain of traumatic experiences and convictions in the event of depression. It is a very useful strategy because it is a convenient resource to carry out everywhere.
Neurofeedback
Neurofeedback is a brain training device that monitors and balances brain activity and is beneficial in cases of depression. Frontal asymmetry is demonstrated by a common pattern of depression on brain mapping. In temporal areas of the brain and in networks and pathways linked to the regulation of mood, imbalances can also be found. Depression may result from anxiety or stress in other situations, representing another characteristic trend at the level of the brain. It is possible to learn to control these regions that are responsible for regulating our thoughts, motivation and initiative through Neurofeedback. Neurofeedback produces, with long-term improvements and without side effects, brain regulation.
Author Bio
Olivia Woods, I am a blog writer, and my purpose as a writer is to encourage people to make their dreams come true to have a more meaningful life. I believe in the power of shaping, encouraging, and releasing words, and I am performing my freelance job at online assignment writing service. My relationship with writing and my career as a content producer began in 2005, and I am on the way with my upcoming write-ups for both kids and youth.
