Are People With Depression More Likely To Abuse Others, Or Be The Victims Of Abuse?

Question: Are people with depression more likely to abuse others, or be the victims of abuse?

Answer: In general, patients with depression tend to have a very low self-image and they have real cognitive dysfunction about themselves. And because they think so poorly of themselves and have terribly inappropriate self-reproach and guilt about themselves, they often end up in abusive relationships in which they have not only been abused as children, but now as adults are in situations of abuse and domestic violence. Rarely do such individuals go on to abuse others.

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