In Brief
- The sex hormones estrogen and testosterone interact differently with the neurotransmitters responsible for feelings of stress and well-being. As a result, men and women vary in their experience of depression and their response to antidepressants.
- Men tend to exhibit less recognizable symptoms of depression, such as anger and restlessness.
- Hormones surge and shift over a life span, making men and women susceptible to depression at different times.
To Emily Dickinson, it was “fixed melancholy.” To essayist George Santayana, it was “rage spread thin.” The turns of phrase conjure different emotions, but these two writers were describing the same disorder: depression. The variance is more than a matter of literary or philosophical differences; it also reflects the fact that one was a woman, the other a man.
Therapists have long known that men and women experience mental illness differently. Yet when clinicians designed the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the guidebook they use to diagnose psychiatric maladies, they purposely made the disease descriptions gender-neutral. Today evidence is mounting that in turning a blind eye to gender, clinicians are doing their patients a disservice. In fact, as more researchers investigate sex differences in depression and other mental illnesses, the inescapable conclusion is that gender influences every aspect of these disorders—from the symptoms patients experience to their response to medication to the course of a disorder throughout a person’s life.
This article was originally published with the title Different Shades of Blue.
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3 Comments
Add CommentIt must be great, being able to define your own market. I can almost see the lines of angry young men forming up at psychiatrist's offices everywhere...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAngry young men will not line up at the psychiatrist's office.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey turn their anger inward, and either blow their brains out or worse, kill their family, whom they see as part of themselves.
Anger leading to violence is common in depressed men.
ralphskinner - Sorry for my sarcasm. Many of not most are lining up to serve prison sentences rather than receive treatment. Not to say that they don't now deserve punishment for their crimes, but earlier diagnosis and treatment in an appropriate environment would have helped many, especially their victims. The system has not failed: there is no system.
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