Stressful Life Events Psychological Medicine

Question: Describe about the Stressful Life Events for Psychological Medicine? Answer: 1 Neuroses can be defined as a group of disorders where the individual tends to develop types of behavior patterns where that encourage them to avoid problems rather than coping up with those problems. As a result of this attitude the disputes do not get resolved and individuals remain in apprehension or resort to the available defense mechanisms. For people who are neurotic it leads to interfere with the effective functioning of the individual and this increases the problems in their lives. This mental condition tends to damage the functioning of any particular part of his life or his relationships. However this condition does not incapacitate the person severely and unlike psychotic patients people with neurotic disorders do not lose the actual sense of reality. Sometimes the causes of neuroses are also fatigue, alcohol or drug abuse or the inability to relax. 2 The result of neurotic behavior is that generally a vicious cycle is created by such behavior. As stated the primary criteria in this condition is the inability to cope up with the problems of the everyday life and take the help of various defenses to avoid this (Torgersen, 1986). As a result of such behavior guilt arises in the minds of such individual and he becomes even more incapable of dealing with tough situations which any other normal person under the same circumstances would have easily handled. Neurotic behavior gives rise to self defeating as the individual is not able to identify the options for the available course of action. This kind of behavior gives rise to neurotic paradox.Further such behavior gives the temporary feeling that a particular problem has been solved and hence gives temporary satisfaction to the person. For the time being it makes the individual forget about the long term problems that they would be facing. 3 Anxiety can be termed as the core of all neuroses. As a result of anxiety the individual generally suffers from a number of physical conditions such as insomnia or digestion or the incapacity to concentrate on anything. In most cases it can be observed that the anxiety of the individual is not apparently seen. However the extreme uses of defensive mechanisms suggest that the person is dealing with anxiety and depression which even though is not observed is taking a toll on the overall mental and physical health of the person. In almost all the prevalent cases of neuroses anxiety is found to be an extremely major factor (Schilder and Bender, 1979). Also anxiety can be easily visible as the individual would in most cases be in a state of high tension and also have a tendency to overreact to even minor issues. 4 The rigid adherence to the self-defeating behavioral patterns is termed as neurotic paradox. This condition arises when an individual attempts to cope up with problems and in return only creates more problems for him or herself (Winokur, 1987). It widely refers to the style of self-perpetuating behavior where the individual as a result of their over-anxiety generally cannot cope up with the self-defeating behavior that is instilled in them. 5 Generally an acute anxiety attack has a lot of accompanying symptoms. Some of these most common symptoms are palpitations, tiredness, breathlessness, chest pain, nervousness, sighting, apprehensions, headache, faintness or dizziness (Tyrer, 1987). Along with these problems the individual also suffers from some other problems while making any decisions. These attacks result in a lot of stress and finally neurosis. Concern and apprehension result in a lot of acute anxiety attacks that happen differently in different individuals. During such attacks individuals fear that something extremely bad is about to take place. The symptoms that accompany the acute anxiety attacks are usually are breath shortage, heart palpitations, perspiration, nausea, muscle tremor and faintness (Copeland, 1983). In most cases these symptoms are a result of the excitement of the autonomic nervous system which is similar to the symptoms that is experienced by such person who is extremely nervous and frightened. Further, persons with such conditions also do not have any idea as to why the person is actually frightened. Such anxiety is also considered as free-floating since such things happen under a number of different situations. 6 Depression can be considered as neurotic under the circumstances when the conditions are such that the depression continues even when for any normal person the depression would stop, for the individual the depression does not end but keeps persisting. Some of the symptoms of depression that can lead to neurosis are dejection and hopelessness. The individual suffering from such kind of depression generally does not have the ability to make any decisions or commence any activity. They also do not take any interest in anything or any person. In most cases the person possesses feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness and they tend to cry a lot and also at times consider suicide. Depression is known to be a very common emotional disorder. There exists several degrees of depression and accordingly, most individuals suffer different degrees of depression at different time spans that range from very mild to extremely severe depressions. Under such conditions where the situations cannot be controlled by the individual, then anxiety leads to depression (Tyrer et al., 1992). 7 Neurotic depression generally refers to that state of mental health of any individual where the person reflects sadness in an abnormal manner with degrees of sadness that is unusually more than that of any normal human being. There are basically two types of depression. One being neurotic depression and the other being psychotic depression (Winokur, Black and Nasrallah, 1987). Neurotic is a more low level depression that occurs gradually and is generally long lasting. In this kind of depression the ability to carry on normal and regular activities is not affected but they do induce a low mood for the person. This kind of mental condition sometimes persists for years and interferes with sleeping and food habits (Brown, NBhrolchin and Harris, 1979). Some of the most common reasons for depression are failing to work properly at school or at work, losing someone whom the individual loves as a result of death or by rejection or sometimes the cause is the realization that age is one of the reason for the depletion of ones resources or the it also may be the result of unresolved anger or resentments. 8 Mood disturbances are also known as affective disorders. It should be noted that such kinds of disorders do not fall under the scope of neuroses but they generally are considered as psychoses. The condition that is observed under affective disorders is that the person would be seriously depressed or may be hugely elated or may also suffer from different periods of depression and elation. In most cases of affective disorders individuals need to be hospitalized. However, there exist two states under which affective disorders can be classified. One is mild manic state and the other is acute manic state. In cases of milder manic, the individual generally is over enthusiastic or over expressive or over confident about himself or herself. Sometimes this kind of behavior can be reflected to that of any such person who is highly intoxicated (Benjaminsen, 1981). On the other hand, people who have acute manic state generally constantly remain active and sometimes they become aggressive and abuse on any interference from any other person. Further they tend to be confused and deloused with great wealth and power. Sometimes tranquillizing drugs tend to reduce the effect of the acute manic state of the individual. 9 Circular manic depressive psychosis can be defined as that kind of a mental state where the depressive and the manic state of the individual is also accompanied by a state where the person behaves absolutely normally. The manic state that accompanies with the elation and high voltage activities can be considered as a state where the individuals attempts to fight with the inabilities that give rise to depression. In such a state the manic individual denies each and every thing that suggests that he or she is in depression (Wolpe, 1986). Such a behavior can be easily differentiated from that of a normal person. 10 These depressive behaviors are generally such that it requires medical help. However there are such mental states that can be resolved with the help of family and friends. In most cases of depression it has been observed that the most important thing that works in their favor to bring them out of depression is through the sympathy, love and affection of their family and friends. Generally when a person is depressed he or she tries to alienate everyone else from himself or herself. Their behavior is rude towards their family. This increases their isolation and sadness. Hence it is important that their family and friends support them under such conditions and try their level best to bring them out of their depressive state. References Benjaminsen, S. (1981). Stressful life events preceding the onset of neurotic depression.Psychological Medicine, 11(02), p.369. Brown, G., NBhrolchin, M. and Harris, T. (1979). Psychotic and neurotic depression.Journal of Affective Disorders, 1(3), pp.195-211. Copeland, J. (1983). Psychotic and neurotic depression: discriminant function analysis and five-year outcome.Psychological Medicine, 13(02), p.373. Schilder, P. and Bender, L. (1979).On neuroses. New York: International Universities Press. Torgersen, S. (1986). Neurotic depression and DSM-III.Acta Psychiatr Scand, 73(s328), pp.31-34. Tyrer, P. (1987). Relationship between neurotic symptoms and neurotic diagnosis: a longitudinal study.Journal of Affective Disorders, 13(1), pp.13-21. Tyrer, P., Seivewright, N., Ferguson, B. and Tyrer, J. (1992). The general neurotic syndrome: a coaxial diagnosis of anxiety, depression and personality disorder.Acta Psychiatr Scand, 85(3), pp.201-206. Winokur, G. (1987). Family (genetic) studies in neurotic depression.Journal of Psychiatric Research, 21(4), pp.357-363. Winokur, G., Black, D. and Nasrallah, A. (1987). Neurotic depression: a diagnosis based on preexisting characteristics.Eur Arch Psychiatr Neurol Sci, 236(6), pp.343-348. Wolpe, J. (1986). The positive diagnosis of neurotic depression as an etiological category.Comprehensive Psychiatry, 27(5), pp.449-460.