Depression and the medicalization of sadness: Conceptualization and recommended help-seeking

Abstract

Background:Critiques of the validity of the DSM diagnostic criteria for depressive disorder argue that it fails to differentiate between abnormal sadness due to internal dysfunction or depression (sadness without an identifiable cause), and normal sadness (sadness with a clear cause).Aims and Methods:A population survey was undertaken in adult education centres in Spain aiming to explore beliefs about depression and normal sadness. Two hypothetical case vignettes portrayed individuals experiencing deep sadness, both fulfilling criteria for major depressive disorder (DSM-IV), one with a clear cause, the other without an identifiable cause. Three hundred and forty-four (344) questionnaires were obtained (95% response rate).Results:Participants statistically significantly differentiated between the sadness-with-cause vignette, seen more frequently as a normal response, while the one without a cause was seen as pathological. Help-seeking behaviour recommendations followed this distinction: a medical option was statistically significantly more common when there was no cause for sadness. Socio-cultural variation in how people understand and deal with sadness was also found.Conclusions:This study emphasizes the importance of taking into account the context in which depressive symptoms occur as it seems that the absence of an appropriate context is what makes people conceptualize them as abnormal. It also raises questions about the lack of face validity of the current diagnostic classification for depressive disorder that exclusively uses descriptive criteria.

Basic emotions expressed in music: factor analyses on intensity ratings by non-musical professional Chinese university students

“…In our study, based on the intensity perceived only, irrespective of the semantic considerations of emotion, we separated the two classes of sad-like music. Our results were supported by a clinical consideration that depression was a severe form or medicalization label of sadness 47. Moreover, in music, it has been consistently found that sad music induces negative, positive, and mixed emotions,44,48,49 and music-evoked sadness is composed of grief, melancholia, and sweet sorrow 50.…”

Assessment of Emotional Experience and Emotional Recognition in Complicated Grief

“…The same pattern was found with other emotional variables such as separation anxiety ( Boelen, 2013 ) or experiential avoidance ( Boelen et al, 2010 ). These results suggest that CG is associated with a general psychopathological profile of more powerful symptoms, that could, for example, be related to the high rates of medication in this population ( Durà-Vilà et al, 2013 ; Bandini, 2015 ; García and Landa, 2015 ).…”

Depression: Ethno Psychological Themes

“…Korean and Russian participants endorsed the view of depression as a personal weakness more than participants in the USA. In a similar way, Dura Villa et al 43 observed that Spaniards were unlikely to view symptoms of depression triggered by negative life events, such as the illness of a family member, as pathological.…”