Create a 7 pages page paper that discusses mood disorders: dysthymic mood disorder. There are two groups or categories of mood disorders including major depression or clinical depression and bipolar disorder, which is also known as manic depression (June, Black & Richardson, 2002). In the period of 1970s and 1980s, health professionals specializing with mental cases started to identify symptoms of mood disorders in adolescents, children and adults, where adolescents and children do not really exhibit similar symptoms as adults (Egeland & Hostetter, 1983). The reason is that it is extremely difficult to diagnose children who have mood disorders as a result of their inability to express the way they feel. This makes mood disorder in adolescents and children a mental health problem because it remains underdiagnosed.

The causes of mood disorders are not well known. However, endorphins, which are chemicals in the brain are said to be responsible for positive moods (Steward, 2000). In light of this revelation of endorphins, mood disorders and depressions are caused by the imbalance of a chemical in the brain (Castren, 2005). Simple events in the life of an individual that has undesirable changes like unplanned pregnancies or poor performance at school may contribute to a mood that has features of depression. In families, affective disorders are considered to be inherited as a result of factors that produce the condition of genetics from the genes of both or one parent (Cadoret, 1978).

Individuals could feel depressed at times or sad. Nonetheless, mood disorders are more extreme and challenging to manage than the usual feelings of unhappiness. Since mood disorders are inherited genetically from parents as we have seen in causes of mood disorders above, adolescents, adults, or children who their parents have mood disorders, have a substantial chance of inheriting mood disorder (Cadoret, 1978). In some instances, problems in life can cause depression. For instance, getting divorced or fired from a job, losing a lover, financial problems, and death of a child in the family, can be trying and managing the pressure may be difficult. These problems in life can cause depression and make managing mood disorder very hard.