Psychoanalytic Explanation For Mood Disorders (Depression And Bipolar Disorder)

Freuds score of stamp focuses on the idea of loss that the seed cause of all slack lies in the loss of fewthing loved, whether it is a person or an object. Lowry (1984) added that this loss can be tangible or imaginary. However, some may headland what separates the overwhelming sadness caused by, say, the death of a loved one, and slump? The psychoanalytical progression fails to answer this. In PJ Claytons case, widows and widowers were studied for a year after the death of their spouses.While low gear brought about by the death of a loved one is excluded as cosmos a depressive episode by almost psychologists, Clayton found that 45% of his subjects fit the criteria for diagnosing of depression. In reaction to the loss, Freud believed the depressive then experiences feelings of self nuisance, and begins to blame themselves for the loss. Freud also believed feelings of self hatred develop from the depressives thoughts about unresolved conflicts which scram often been repressed to the unconscious(p). psychoanalytic comments find it particularly difficult to explain the cyclical record of bipolar discommode, and mood disorders such(prenominal) as SAD and post natal depression they only seem to have an explanation for depression. Melanie Klein, a post Freudian, claims that whether an respective(prenominal) loses his or her self esteem depends on the grapheme of the separates relationship as an baby with his or her acquire during the first year of liveliness.If an individual doesnt have positive experiences with his or her m some other during the first year of life, then a predisposition of depression may be planted. This also links in with the ideas of theorists such as Bowlby. There is research to impale this up, linking adverse early experiences to greater likelihood of maturation a mood disorder later in life e. g.Foltyn et al (1998) who found in a study of Polish medical students that 25% of examined students had depression symptoms and that these students were exposed significantly more than frequently to early negative experiences than students without depression. However, the approach has been criticised for macrocosm as well deterministic. How do we explain how some individuals who have experienced trauma and disengagement in early childhood dont develop depression and go on to tug happy, normal lives, as shown in assorted case studies?Freud also believed that too more positive experiences during the first year of life (oral stage) could set an individual up for developing depression later on in life. He believed that if a child is nurtured too much over indulged as an infant they could become fixated at the oral stage. The individual may develop problems later in grownup life because he or she is used to receiving excessive amounts of attention as a child and perhaps non as much in adult life, so may feel rejected, unloved, and thus become depressed.A lot of the psychoanalytic explanation is ve ry difficult to test empirically. Freuds stages of psychosexual development occur at an unconscious level, which makes it difficult to test. Psychoanalytic explanations give meagre weight to the role of biological factors in the development of mood disorders. The evidence regarding contagious factors, the role of neurochemicals and the effectiveness of anti-depressant drugs, appears to be unheeded by psychoanalysts.A key strength to the psychoanalytic approach is that they claim their therapy targets the underlying causes of the disorder, which other treatments dont do. They claim that biological treatments, such as drugs and ECT, treat the symptoms not the underlying causes they only if mask of disguise the underlying problems. Psychoanalytic treatments tackle those problems which are usually root in some significant and on going psychological problem which has its origins on early experiences perhaps making it more effective.