Depression Help

For a long time mental illness was thought to be caused by an evil spirit. It was something to fear and ashamed of. With scientific development we have the better understanding of what actually depression is. It is now considered to be an illness needing treatment and care just like other illnesses.

NORMAL AND ABNORMAL BEHAVIOUR:

It is not easy to differentiate between normal and abnormal behavior or between mental illness and mental health. Due to weakness in our personality or other causes, we behave abnormally at times. The chief sign of mentally ill person is that he/she is not able to adjust to life situations and cannot be responsible for his/her own affairs.

CAUSES OF ABNORMAL BEHAVIOUR:

1. Heredity seems to be an important factor in mental disorders. Behavior changes begin at adolescence or later.
2. ORGANIC BRAIN DISORDERS, caused by such things as
3. Head injury
4. Tumor of the brain
5. Infection of the brain e.g. due to measles, rabies.
6. Alcohol, certain drugs and poisons cause changes in the behavior.
7. Brain development and function are affected both before and after birth by
8. Rubella and other effective agents.
9. Radiation –radio active contamination or too many X-rays,
10. Thyroid gland disorder of the mother causing the child to be cretin.
11. Deficiency of some B vitamins and of iodine has effect on the nervous system and behavior.
12. Physical handicaps and chronic illness affect the personality and are pre-disposing causes of some abnormal behavior.
13. Intelligence, children with very high or very low intelligence is often maladjusted and develops abnormal behavior.
14. Periods in life of stress and strain, especially adolescence, marriage, pregnancy and post natal period, change of life and old age, are times when abnormal behavior may occur.
15. Crisis in life such as death of the loved one, loss of job, broken marriage, accident or disaster cause some people to breakdown and unable to cope with the situation. This is more likely when personality is already weakened by the adverse experiences in early life.

Neglect of basic needs of infants and young children regards nutrition and all factors of physical, emotional and social development.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 5th, 2007 at 3:19 am and is filed under Depression. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.