Are the symptoms of depression usually physical or emotional?

In the medical journal CNS Spectrums, doctors from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, NJ observe: “Worldwide, patients with common mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety, have a tendency to present first to primary care exhibiting idiopathic [medically unexplained] physical symptoms. Typically, these symptoms consist of pain and other physical complaints that remain medically unexplained.” 

Thus, patients with depression who consult with a doctor complain of medically unexplained physical symptoms instead of psychological and  emotional symptoms. For example, such patients say, “I have headaches” or “I’m tired all the time,” rather than volunteering psychological symptoms such as, “Doctor, my mood is low and I’m depressed,” or “I’ve lost interest in doing things,” or “I’m nervous and anxious.”

Depression and anxiety most often become recognizable by the associated, medically unexplained physical symptoms that a patient describes.

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