Depression

            Chapter 16 Psychological Disorders Depression .
             The topic of depression is of special interest to me for a number of reasons. Depression is very common in today's society and is a very fascinating psychological condition. Also many some of my friends and family members show signs of depression. After reading the textbook and doing some online research, I have come to conclude that my brother has a form of depression called Dysthmia. I have concluded this due to the appearance of some of the symptoms that I have observed in my brother. My brother has a mild form of depression and has feelings of hopelessness and fatigue. The cause of his condition is still unknown to me. But I have formed hypotheses that could explain the cause of the condition. It is known that most of depression has deep genetic roots. The notion of being genetically disposed to being depressed is known. (1). Doing a little bit of research I found out that none of my parents or grandparents were depressed neither am I or any of my other siblings. So the genetic factor being at play in the cause has to be ruled out. The other factor that I suspect as being a factor in the prevalence of the condition is the fact that my brother has experienced a lot of learned helpless. Learned help nesses is when a person experiences failure after failure at a certain task that eventually he gives up trying. Learned helpnesses has been researched and has been associated with depression (2). I believe that my brother acquired the learned helpnesses when my parents indirectly forced my brother to attend Wayne State University and do the pre-medical curriculum. My parents are determined that we all grow up to be professionals in the medical field and make them proud. My brother had a hard time making the transition from High School to a large scale university and didn't do as good as he should of. This led my brother to feel hopeless and eventually after all the failures he just stopped caring about school.