From the author: published on the website Depression (psychiatric approach). Depression syndrome refers to affective syndromes, that is, conditions that primarily include mood disorders (depressive and manic). Typical depression is characterized primarily by the classic triad: low mood (hypotymia), motor and ideational (cognitive, mental) inhibition. That is, a person not only suffers mentally, but he also thinks poorly and tries to reduce the number of movements. Depressive states, especially mild ones, are characterized by fluctuations in mood and general condition during the day with improvement in the evening. With minor depression, patients often experience feelings of unmotivated hostility towards family, friends and relatives. They often experience dissatisfaction and irritation. Depression is characterized by sleep disturbances, such as insomnia or shallow sleep with frequent awakenings. A depressive state is regularly accompanied by somatic manifestations: patients look tired, aged, they have increased brittleness of nails, hair loss, slow pulse, constipation, lack of appetite and loss of pleasure from eating (food is “like grass”), women may have menstrual irregularities cycle. In psychiatry, depression is classified into simple and complex. Each of these two groups is divided into numerous species. Simple ones include melancholic, anxious, adynamic, anesthetic, apathetic, and dysphoric depressions. It is clear that the basis for this division is the observed condition of the patient, which is reflected in the name. Complex depressions include senestohypochondriacal depression, depression with delusions and hallucinations, and catatonic disorders. These conditions include, in addition to mood disorders, additional psychiatric syndromes. In general, depression is characterized, in addition to worsening mood, by depressing, hopeless melancholy. Often it is experienced not only as mental pain, but also accompanied by physical painful sensations, for example, unpleasant sensations in the abdominal area, heaviness in the heart. Everything is perceived in a gloomy light, impressions that gave pleasure in the past lose all meaning, the past is seen as a series of mistakes. The future seems hopeless. Patients often spend their entire lives in a monotonous position, their movements are slow, and their facial expressions are mournful. Symptoms from the names of the group of simple depressions can be added to this picture and come to the fore: anxiety, lack of movement, loss of feelings and sensations, loss of will, embitterment. According to statistics, depression can develop in 20% of the female population and 10% of the male population. The average age of onset of depression is considered to be 30-40 years. In general, depression is more common in people who do not have close interpersonal ties (living outside of marriage) and in divorced people. Proposed causes of depression can be divided into biogenetic and psychosocial. For example, disturbances in the metabolism (turnover) of neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine, serotonin, gamma-aminobutyric acid and other biogenic amines are proposed as biogenetic. These neurotransmitters promote the formation of connections between neurons in the brain. Some researchers tend to put sleep disturbances, especially its rapid phase, not as a consequence, but as a cause of depression. In general, everyone agrees that with depression there is a disruption in the functioning of the limbic system, basal ganglia and hypothalamus (these are deep structures of the brain, in particular, responsible for neuroendocrine regulation). Genetic experiments give reason to believe that depressive syndrome can be inherited. Psychosocial hypotheses speak of the influence of child-parental problems in early childhood, negative life events and stress, and the initial personality structure on the development of a depressive state. For measuring.