Depression Therapy
Has Depression Taken Over Your Life?
Do you feel like you have no joy? Have you sunk into a pattern of feeling low and blue, unable to escape its hold? Are you ready to escape the stagnancy that’s settled over your life and gain a deeper understanding of your potential for happiness?
When depression hits, your quality of life changes seemingly overnight. Nothing feels okay anymore. Instead, you feel dissatisfied with everything around you—yourself, your relationships, your job, your future. It’s as if a dark cloud has descended over you that compels you to perceive the world through a lens of negativity.
Depression can drain life of all meaning. Lacking the motivation to propel yourself forward, your concentration falters and desires dim. The activities that once brought enjoyment no longer interest you and have been replaced with dread or a sense of doom. When the negativity gets to be too much, your self-worth plummets and you might even experience suicidal ideation.
Your Emotional And Physical State Are Intertwined
It’s difficult to discern if your emotional state is affecting you physically, or vice versa. You may find your sleep is impacted—either sleeping too much or not enough—resulting in restlessness or exhaustion. If you feel lethargic, a lack of regular exercise and poor eating habits could be exacerbating your symptoms. Neglecting other forms of self-care, like grooming and social engagement, may also be contributing to your low mood. Perhaps you find you’ve become irritable and prone to anger or you’ve checked out emotionally and feel numb. You may turn to addictive behaviors to cope with your inner turmoil.
If only you could feel worthy of love and happiness and find satisfaction in life once again, you would regain a sense of normalcy and move forward toward your goals. Fortunately, with the support of a compassionate counselor, depression therapy holds the solutions you seek.
The Causes Of Depression Are Numerous
The World Health Organization has reported that “Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide and impacts over 300 million individuals across the globe.”[1] However, according to Mental Health America, “While the majority of individuals with depression have a full remission of the disorder with effective treatment, only about a third of those suffering from severe depression seek treatment from a mental health professional.”[2]
The prevalence of depression can be attributed to its many origins, including genetics, life circumstances, family history, physical health, and the gut-brain axis.[3] When we experience difficult life events—such as grief, domestic or sexual violence, or trauma and neglect in childhood—we are at higher risk of developing depression. Additionally, belonging to a marginalized group, like the LGBTQIA community or minority culture, can increase our risk for depression.
We May Lack The Understanding To Manage Depression On Our Own
Growing up, many of us were never taught healthy ways to cope with our emotions. Now as adults, we may continue to equate vulnerability with weakness, a tendency that’s more common in men who are often raised to not talk about their feelings. What’s more, we may be unaware of the growing body of research showing correlations between gut health and mental health; or how nutrition impacts our mental health, failing to connect the dots that in many ways, what we eat has an impact on how we feel.
More recently, dealing with depression has become even more challenging due to the influence of social media and the fallout of the pandemic. Social media has replaced authentic face-to-face connection with unhealthy self-comparison to misleading images of others’ lives we can never measure up to. Covid-19 has increased our isolation and brought about numerous forms of loss. But rather than recognizing we’re depressed, we may downplay our symptoms or normalize the pain we’re in.
Fortunately, therapy can help you get to the root causes of your depression, helping you understand what’s been happening and how to combat its debilitating symptoms.
With Therapy, Depression Can Be Lifted
Just because you’re depressed doesn’t mean you’re inherently broken. You don’t have to suffer alone pretending everything is okay. Whether you also suffer from anxiety or are experiencing a form of situational depression, or low mood triggered by injury or illness, therapy is a safe space to be vulnerable and explore your thoughts and feelings without judgment or recrimination.
Your therapist will aim to normalize depression by providing you with psychoeducation to explain the interplay between the gut-brain axis as well as other physiological contributing factors. Through guided self-reflection, you will learn helpful ways to change your brain's default mindset from negativity to one of positivity and hopefulness. By exploring your past to better understand your present, you will establish a new framework of coping skills for depression you can apply outside of therapy.
What To Expect In Sessions
At your initial session, your therapist will review your intake questionnaire to ensure they have a complete picture of your background and understand how depression affects your daily life. Once your pain points are identified, you will collaborate with your counselor to create goals and a roadmap for depression treatment.
Through self-exploration, you will begin to identify recurring patterns in your life—such as negative self-talk, and unhealthy relationships—and examine where these patterns originated. We will look at how your experiences in childhood may influence how you think, feel, and behave now. By understanding their origins, you’ll be able to transform these patterns into healthier, more adaptive ones that will support moving forward in life rather than continually feeling stuck.
The Modalities We Use
We incorporate various modalities into depression counseling sessions, including psychodynamic therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Exploring Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), mindfulness and grounding techniques, as well as highlighting fitness, nutrition, meditation, and other self-care practices to promote well-being.
IFS explores the different ‘parts’ of yourself and how these different parts make up who you are. By identifying where these distinct core beliefs about yourself reside within you—and understanding when and why they originated—you will gain valuable insight into how you perceive the world, realizing you are never limited to existing as just one ‘part’. And EMDR can diminish the symptoms of depression by guiding you to reprocess and desensitize traumatic memories.
Each modality enhances your understanding and awareness of why you are the way you are, which, in turn, allows you to build your self-esteem and increase self-compassion. And by providing you with the necessary tools, you’ll be able to take what you’ve learned and apply it outside of therapy.
Depression therapy can help you change the way you interact with yourself and the world. With your commitment to treatment, leading a life without depression is possible.
But You May Wonder Whether Depression Therapy Is Right For You…
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When prescribed without therapy, medication is merely a band-aid that treats depression symptoms without addressing its underlying causes. Treatment helps you get to the root causes of depression so that you can make fundamental shifts in your thoughts and behaviors. However, taking medication in conjunction with therapy to treat clinical depression can be beneficial in some circumstances. If you’d like to integrate medication into treatment, we can discuss your options and refer you to a psychiatrist.
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It’s understandable that if you’ve gone to therapy before and it didn’t help with your depression, you’re reluctant to try counseling again. Because this is a common occurrence with our clients, we encourage you not to give up on therapy just because your previous experience wasn’t helpful. Perhaps you and the counselor weren’t a good fit or the modalities they used to treat depression didn’t resonate with you. EMDR, CBT, and IFS are uniquely effective modalities that you may find helpful in your healing journey. If your last attempt at therapy was unsuccessful, you may also want to ask yourself how motivated you are to make changes in your life now compared to when you last attended therapy.
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To maximize client privacy and provide a superior service to our clients, we are a private-pay-only group practice. However, we can provide your insurance company with a superbill to determine whether full or partial reimbursement may be possible. We are also happy to space out your visits and offer more homework in between sessions to make therapy more affordable. Ultimately, you will find that receiving high-quality treatment for depression is worth the additional out-of-pocket cost of private pay.
Depression’s Cloud Can Be Lifted. Let Life Begin Anew.
We’re excited to partner with you on your journey to a fuller, happier life. To schedule a free, 15-minute consultation to learn more about anxiety therapy, please click here to contact us.
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