2009-12-18, 12:18 AM
Socially, depression is very loosely defined. I haven't touch anything medical-related but I'm very sure the definition of depression is more strictly defined. Hell, even for fancy writing, one can use the word "depression" to emphasis how dire the situation is. It is because the term has both a connotation and a denotation definition that causes arouses this confusion. Similarly, when people joke around and call each other retarded. Obviously, there are medical conditions and reasons a patient must "meet" in order to be regarded as legally retarded.
You can also take the word "intelligent" and blow it up like you did with depression. What defines intelligence? Standardized testing? Logic reasoning? How far must one go before they are considered intelligent? Because at one point or another, everyone have solved a challenging riddle or scored high on a standardized test; just like they have for depression.
The thing with words from psychology is, I believe, that they are very relative to real life situations thus people tend to use them loosely to color their rhetoric.
You can also take the word "intelligent" and blow it up like you did with depression. What defines intelligence? Standardized testing? Logic reasoning? How far must one go before they are considered intelligent? Because at one point or another, everyone have solved a challenging riddle or scored high on a standardized test; just like they have for depression.
The thing with words from psychology is, I believe, that they are very relative to real life situations thus people tend to use them loosely to color their rhetoric.