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hopefully by now we all know that
depression is about more than sadness
but even if your idea of depression also
includes things like hopelessness or
apathy
what about irritability or anger does
depression make you think of
overwhelming guilt what about memory
loss because those are all symptoms -
there's a lot we still don't understand
about depression especially when it
comes to what's happening on the
cellular level but we know that when it
comes to the experience of depression
the disorder often shows itself in the
form of unhealthy psychological
processes it turns out that some of
those processes specifically self-blame
and rumination can lead to symptoms
people might not realize our signs of
depression and that's too bad because
the result is that we misunderstand
those who are suffering from it
sometimes including ourselves Freud
wrong as he was about a lot of things
pointed out the depression was different
from simple sadness because it was
associated with guilt and today
psychologists consider self blame a key
symptom of depression when something bad
happens depressed people tend to blame
themselves and see it as a reflection of
their self-worth as a whole an example
researchers sometimes use is that if you
fail at a sports match it means you're a
total failure what's weird is that this
only applies to yourself depressed
people don't usually assign blame to
others in the same way turns out the
unusual amount of guilt and the only
applying it to yourself might come from
two regions of the brain that don't
activate together the way they should in
a 2012 study researchers scanned the
brains of 25 people who'd previously had
depression and 22 people who didn't when
the people who'd never been depressed
read descriptions of themselves doing
something wrong it activated both the
part of their brain associated with
guilt and the part that deals with
morality and what's socially appropriate
in people who'd been depressed that
second part wasn't activated as strongly
this was a small study so we can't draw
too many conclusions from it but based
on the results the authors suggested
that people who are more prone to
depression don't get an accurate picture
of what they did wrong so they just feel
guilty about everything so that's one
unhealthy thought pattern that can cause
symptoms beyond
plain old sadness or apathy another is
rumination and it is a big one
rumination is basically brooding usually
unintentionally part of problem solving
involves analyzing the factors
surrounding the problem and that applies
to negative emotional experiences too
but rumination takes that way too far
it's getting stuck thinking about
everything that led to and resulted from
a negative experience and it's strongly
linked to both depression and anxiety it
can also explain some of the less
straightforward signs of depression like
memory problems of all the symptoms of
depression memory problems might be the
most surprising because we tend to
classify depression as emotional and
memory as a more mechanical part of the
mind but this is just a false dichotomy
that's not how the brain works
depressive disorders often include
problems with cognitive function
the ability to clearly understand
process and respond to information and
researchers think that it has a lot to
do with rumination eating up all your
brain power you need cognitive resources
to pay attention and remember things and
when people with depression are using
those resources to brood they have
trouble redirecting them toward the task
at hand they end up struggling with
episodic memory which is the
recollection of specific events that
happen to you and working memory which
is how you hold on to information that
you're currently using to process other
information those are both pretty
important it becomes a vicious cycle
where the only way to break out of this
pattern of rumination is to redirect
your mental resources towards something
that might make you feel better but
that's exactly what rumination makes it
so much harder to do so people get stuck
rumination can also lead to another
common symptom of depression anger and
irritability which appears in more than
half of patients although it's only used
to diagnose the disorder in kids and
teens but it can be a sign of
particularly severe depression at its
core rumination is a coping strategy
people used to help regulate their
emotions it's just not a very good one
instead of feeling better when people
brood on something that made them angry
they tend to spend more time angry we
still have more to learn about how
unhealthy thought patterns like self
blame and rumination contribute to
depression and it's symptoms but as we
study them we're just
covering that they can explain a lot and
there's some good news here to
self-blame may have to do with brain
regions not activating the way they
should and rumination may feel like
getting stuck but researchers point out
that unhealthy thought patterns like
these are exactly what psychotherapy is
meant to help with cognitive behavioral
therapy especially is designed to
identify the connections between thought
patterns and behaviors and reshape those
thought patterns in a healthier way
so yes depression is a complicated
difficult illness but there are
therapies and treatments that can help
and recognizing the different ways
depression manifests itself is an
important step toward getting that help
and doing this research thanks for
watching this episode of scishow psyche
if you're interested in learning more
about the science of depression you can
check out our video on common
misconceptions about antidepressants and
don't forget to subscribe
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