Adolescent Depression Mental disorders represent the number one health problem for the United States and probably for the entire human population. Some studies estimate that approximately one-third of all Americans suffer from some sort of emotional disturbance. Depression will affect as many as twenty percent of all of us one time or another in our lives. Severe anxiety is even more common. Depression has been a part of human existence since ancient times. Depression is a disease that afflicts the human psyche in such a way that the afflicted tends to act and react abnormally toward others and themselves. Therefore it comes to no surprise that adolescent depression is strongly linked to teen suicide. Adolescent suicide is now responsible for more deaths in youths aged fifteen to nineteen than cardiovascular disease or cancer (Blackman, 1995). Despite this increased suicide rate, depression in this age group is greatly underdiagnosed and leads to serious difficulties in school, work and personal adjustment that may often continue into adulthood. How prevalent are mood disorders in children and when should an adolescent with changes in mood be considered clinically depressed? Brown (1996) has said the reason why depression is often overlooked in children and adolescents is because “children are not always able to express how they feel.” Sometimes the symptoms of mood disorders take on different forms in children that in adults. Adolescence is a time of emotional turmoil, mood swings, gloomy thoughts, and heightened sensitivity. It is a time of rebellion and experimentation. Blackman (1996) observed that the “challenge is to identify depressive symptomatology which may be superimposed on the backdrop of a more transient, but expected, developmental storm.” Therefore, diagnosis should not lie only in the physician’s hands but be associated with parents, teachers and anyone who interacts with the patient on a...
