Mood and Mood Disorders

INTRODUCTION

Our moods as human beings come and go. We experience feelings of rejection, failure in exams, sadness, loss of loved ones, disappointments, anger, etc which are reactions to our daily events. Fortunately such feelings affects our lives in short periods and they are gone. In other words, such feelings do not bring our whole world and functioning to a halt or interfere completely with our normal daily functioning.

People with mood disorders have mood problems that last for months or years and such moods that linger in our lives for long dominate one’s interactions with the world and disrupt normal functioning. In addition, mood disorders are as a result of human being’s inability to cope with prolonged low moments of life for a long time hence affecting normal daily operations. At the stage where one is unable to cope with ordinary daily activities due to mental malfunctioning as a result of continued disturbed mood is refered to as mood disorder that leads to other health problems. In this work we are going to reflect on mood and mood disorders, types and causes, different theories that explain mood disorders and finally how treatment can be carried out.

I. CAUSES OF MOOD DISORDERS

A. BIOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS

Studies of family have helped to determine the genetic contribution of disorders within the family system as a result of genes. This has been successful with identical twin studies who share identical genes.

1. Family and genetic evidences

The best existing evidence that genes have a connection with mood disorders is as a result of identical twins based on a regular study and comparison of identical twins who share identical genes and fraternal twins who share only 50% of the genes. It is observed that if the disorder is present, it is more prevalent in identical twins than in fraternal twins. This implies that mood disorders can be inherited. Close relatives where there has been evidence of mood disorders are more prone to exhibiting the disorder more than in families without a history of mood disorder. Barlow, H. and Durant, V. (2009) attest that “data from family studies indicate that the more signs and symptoms of anxiety and depression there are in a given patient, the greater the rate of anxiety , depression or both in first degree relatives or children” (p. 229).

2. Neurotransmitter systems

Research has shown that chemical imbalances in the brain play a key role in the onset of disease. Messages from the brain are passed through brain cells, or neurons. These neurons communicate with each other through chemical messengers refered to as neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are found within the brain and the nervous system and they carry messages from one neuron to another. These neurotransmitters

B. PSYCHOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS

Stress and trauma are among the major causes of psychological disorders. Most people who develop depression report cases of loss of a job, loss of a loved one, divorce, or some other psychological disorders. People deal with changes in their life differently, for example, loosing a job may be more stressful for some people than others. For some children, loosing a parent can be more stressful depending on how close the child was to the parent. Kendler and colleagues (2003), as quoted by Barrow, D. and Durant, M. in their research “demonstrated in an elegant twin study that if one twin experienced a loss, such as the death of a loved one, that twin was 10times more likely to become depressed than the twin who didn’t experience the loss” (p. 232). In summary, stressful life events are strongly related to the onset of mood disorders.

1. Learned helplessness

Martin Seligman discovered that dogs and rats have an interesting emotional reaction to events over which they have no control. Out of research, dogs and rats however much they were subjected to electric shocks, coped well with the shocks as long as they did something to avoid them. But if they learnt that nothing they did helped them to avoid the shocks, they eventually became helpless and gave up. These findings developed into what is called today, Learned helpless theory of depression.

The same may happen to human beings. When human beings develop pessimistic thoughts and feelings about a situation or event that there is nothing they can do to change the course of events or situation, they give up on themselves and to life in general. With feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, they describe themselves as good for nothing and useless to everyone as well as themselves. Such feelings discourage in them any effort