Mandy Vizcarra
Research Paper
6-3-10
Depression in Women
Introduction
• Many people have felt depressed or sad in their lifetime. When a person has experienced this type of feeling it could have been from a number of things; loss of a loved one, low self esteem, or life struggles. If an individual feels deep sadness it can also include; hopelessness, helplessness, and worthlessness. These feelings can last for days, weeks, or even months and keep you from living normally everyday, this depression is more than sadness, it is clinical depression; a treatable medical condition.
• According to the website of the National Mental Health Association, approximately 12 million women in the United States experience clinical depression each year. About one in every eight women can expect to develop clinical depression in their lifetime, and women are about twice as likely as men to suffer from depression.
Thesis
Depression is a serious illness that a lot of people take lightly. When people think of depression they think of being sad or suicidal. What people do not know is that it is way more serious than that. Depression seems to be related to a chemical imbalance in the brain that makes it hard for the cells to communicate with one another (http://familydoctor.org). The definition of depression is a mental state characterized by a pessimistic sense of inadequacy and a despondent lack of activity (worldnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn). The signs and symptoms are not only characterized by negative thoughts, moods, and behaviors but also specific changes in bodily functions (for example: loss of interest or pleasure in activities , feelings of guilt, excessive crying, sleeping too much or little, appetite and/or weight loss or over eating and weight gain, decreased energy, etc.) With a lot of research that has been studied and evaluated by clinical researchers, depression has been under treated and a lot of times...