Teen Crisis Intervention: Depression is Different Than the Blues
One area of teen crisis intervention is depression. Teenage depression, and depression in general, is reported as being on the rise. Some claim that that increase actually represents more depression being reported since the stigma attached to it has lessened.
Actual depression, in and of itself, is indeed a frightening and enervating experience for those who have it and those who live with them. But there is concern that it may be over-prescribed for, with perfectly healthy people deciding that their occasional, and quite normal, bout of the blues needs medicating.
The seriousness of depression was very clear to me when talking with a friend raising a teenage girl. In a girls boarding school since her freshman year, her father’s financial reversals brought her home. Finishing her senior year away from her friends threw her into a suicidal spin that her mother fears daily will be repeated.
Check with your trusted physicians as well as mental health specialists if you have concerns about your teen possibly being depressed. An article in Science Daily goes over basic information.
Relevant Tags:girls boarding schools, mental health specialists, professional examination, teenage depression, teen crisis, teen crisis intervention“Classic severe depression is fairly easy to recognize. However, there exist milder forms and variant forms that are less easy to recognize…
Depression generally presents as a persistent (more than 2 weeks) decrease in enthusiasm, motivation, energy, concentration, and enjoyment. It also can lead to sleep or appetite disturbance and feelings of worthlessness or guilt. Additionally, depression generally causes an individual to experience more medical problems and to be more susceptible to physical illness, including death.
Depression is NOT normal feelings of sadness, which ebb and flow according to situational factors.”
