Understanding depression, in the shadow of pandemic

Our Reporter
Dimapur, June 23 (EMN): Of late, there has been a noticeable rise in conversations involving the state of mental health, and thus, depression. Experts have warned of the possibility of Covid-19 pandemic triggering a mental health crisis.

Speaking to Eastern Mirror, noted psychiatrist in Nagaland, Dr. P Ngully, said that being depressed can be a mood, when one feels sad or emotional, but when it comes to clinical depression, they have to see the patient’s history and work out the reason behind the problem in order to qualify the patient as ‘depressed.’

Ngully explained that pneumonia, for example, could be caused by bacteria or virus or many other things; so one cannot generalise the disease. “If pneumonia is caused by bacteria, one has to be treated by antibiotics. So likewise, depression is also just like a disease and in their domain, they are configured to be termed as a mental illness.”

The psychiatrist informed that depression can be genetic but not all patients have some genetic inclination. They might have ‘some vulnerability’ and psychiatrists have to check if there are any stressful environmental factors that can lead to the depressive syndrome in that person.

Ngully further informed that depression can be quite different from person to person, and any person who is not qualified in the profession may look at it in a different way.

A diagnosis can be made only after looking into all the symptoms the patient is manifesting or showing, after which a treatment is followed.

He explained that a person could react to a situation ‘in a sad mood’, if someone loses his job or some relative passes away, for example. “Naturally one becomes sad but it does not come under clinical depression; it is just a ‘reactive depression’ and there are various ways to approach it,” he said.

Counselling is a therapeutic process and part of the treatment, he said but it should be confidential.

He added that in counselling, the counsellor has to follow certain scientific principles but how they apply it depends on the need of the client.

“In counselling, one must be willing to accept the client without being judgemental and confidentiality should be maintained, active listening and lot of clarification between them should be communicated to understand the reason behind the cause of the client’s depression,” the doctor said.

Biological depression is caused by genetic vulnerability since the patient might have a family history of depression whereas psychological depression involves environmental factors.

“But in some cases, people with certain biological vulnerability are the ones who suffer from clinical depression and persons with certain psychological vulnerability might be overwhelmed by the stressful situation. So they may react to those situations within psychological depression, which does not need the attention of a psychiatrist as it can be taken care of by a counsellor as well,” he said.

Ngully informed that there are counselling sessions for people undergoing quarantine; and with people going through this Covid-19 pandemic, counselling has become important in order to give support to people who may be traumatised by this situation.

People going through this crisis might feel sad or experience loss of appetite while some might respond to the situation with anger, agitation, violence and aggression. But all these reactions, he said, might not fall under the category of depression; so counselling becomes important in these cases.

He added that a counsellor observes the emotional response of the person and after making the person vent out his/her emotions, they make the person understand that the problem needs to be solved.

Ngully said that issues pertaining to mental health are always hidden under the carpet and ‘as human beings, one has the right to defend their sanity’.

He said that if people seek professional help or counselling, they will be stigmatised by people and fear their label as a person with mental health problem, which prevent them from seeking help.

He added that mental health problems might not cause physical pain or suffering but it would make one violent, aggressive or it can make them depressed and these are just manifestations of something wrong mentally and therefore one needs professional intervention.