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Mood Disorders: A Psychological Analysis

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Every person in this world struggles with a variety of emotions every single day. These variety of emotions are what are known as a person’s mood. The area of psychology that intrigues me the most is mood disorders and how they can be established and affected. Mood disorders are “A category of mental disorders in which significant and persistent disruptions in mood or emotions cause impaired cognitive, behavioral, and physical functioning; also called affective disorders” (Hockenbury, 2014, 547) The reason I enjoy this topic is because I don’t have much prior knowledge of how these disorders may come about. Aspects of psychology I feel work closely with mood disorders, is sleep, drugs, and motivation. One topic in psychology that can be related …show more content…
As stated in the textbook, “Psychoactive drugs are chemical substances that can alter arousal, mood, thinking, sensation, and perception” (Hockenbury, 2014, 166). If a person chooses to use a drug everyday, they will build up a tolerance that provokes them to consume more to experience the same feeling. When someone takes a drug often, they become physically dependent on it, and without it, they experience withdrawal, which gives the user many unpleasant physical and mental symptoms. “Often the withdrawal symptoms are opposite to the drug’s action, a phenomenon called the drug rebound effect. For example, withdrawing from stimulating drugs, like the caffeine in coffee, may produce depression and fatigue”(Hockenbury, 2014,166). The only way to alleviate these symptoms is to start taking the drug again, so the user is always in a struggle with combating their drug addiction, leading to many mood swings and general mood …show more content…
Motivation as explained in the textbook is, “The biological, emotional, cognitive, or social forces that activate and direct behavior“(Hockenbury, 2014,318). Motivation is many times tied with emotion, because you are motivated to achieve certain feeling or expressions. If you have a mood disorder such as depression, you may have zero motivation to try something new or something exciting, further leading you into a depressed state. Some psychology theorists have come up with drive theories, or “The view that behavior is motivated by the desire to reduce internal tension caused by unmet biological needs” (Hockenbury, 2014,319) to explain one having no motivation. When someone suffers from a mood disorder, they lack the motivation to change these internal tensions, and unless they gain the motivation to solve these tensions, they will keep these

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