Reading about depression.

The British Journal of Psychiatry © 1996 The Royal College of Psychiatrists Volume 168 Supplement 30 June 1996 pp 101-108 The Relationship Between Pain and Depression

In 'The Relationship between Pain and Depression' Micheal Von Korff explains and theorises the relationship between different kinds of pain and depression.

I am most interested in the link between emotional pain and depression.
For example Sigmund Freud coined that depression was a similar feeling to mourning the death or the loss of a person or a subject in your life.

Von Korff says that 'At the neurobiological level, neurotransmitters (e.g. serotonin, norepinephrine) implicated in depressive illness have been found to play a critical role in pain modulation as well (Fields, 1987, 1991; Osterweis et al, 1987).  [17,18,28] This suggests that pain transmission may be altered by affective illness, while nociceptive input may also induce or exacerbate a dysphoric affective state. At the psychological level, it has been hypothesised that chronic pain is a particular form of somatisation in which negative emotions are expressed through bodily complaints, including pain.'

The last sentence explains the link between physical pain and depression as being expressed through complaining of the pain which in shot and simple terms, creates a negative environment for the person.

The sentences before this give a bit of an insight into emotional pain (depression) and explains that emotional pain transmission in the brain can be altered by an 'affective illness' (this could be the feeling of pain over the loss of something) which then may induce a negative affective state.. which would then be the depression.



I found it very helpful to read this and a few other texts and articles on different types of depression because they've started to help me understand how depression is formed and how different people react. I really think this will benefit my work because I have a much better understanding on how to portray elements of it now.