The Main Differences in Clinical Depression - Coursework Example

The main differences between clinical depression and ordinary sadness are cause, duration, recurrence, and coinciding symptoms. Ordinary sadness has a life-based cause, whether real or imagined. It is of short duration, seldom lasting more than a few days and there is no regular recurrence. The real sadness is generally attributed to an outside source.

Psychosomatic disorders actually can cause the symptoms from which the patient complains and the physical problems are measurable, even though the cause is psychological(Corey 592).

1. What did Freud and his followers believe was the underlying cause of psychological disorders?

Freud and his followers believed that psychological disorders were caused by conflicts between the conscious and unconscious minds, basically the difference between what the patient thinks consciously and what he feels or even imagines (Butcher, Mineka, and Hooley )(Corey 592).

2. What is mania, and how is it involved in bipolar disorder?

Mania is a mood disorder, generally an elevated expansive or irritable mood lasting for a longer period, generally days to a week or more. It is part of manic depression where the victim suffers recurring and alternating depressive incidents and high manic incidents with no discernible cause in life since it is chemically based(Butcher, Mineka, and Hooley )(Corey 592).