Depression Treatment

Have You Lost Joy In Life?

Do you suffer from feelings of hopelessness? Does sadness permeate your life? Do you wonder where these emotions came from? Do you feel isolated without a solid support system? Perhaps physical symptoms, such as lethargy, have caused you to feel even more hopeless. Are you eating less, sleeping more and ignoring your personal hygiene? Do you blame yourself for your emotional state, believing you should be able to get over this? Do you have self-destructive thoughts? Do you wish you could feel happy again, knowing you are loved and desired by friends and family?

Depression can make you feel that moving through your daily activities is slow and laborious - like trying to move through sludge. It may be a struggle to get out of bed each day as you feel apathetic about your routine. At home and at work, you may feel like you are moving in slow motion. Distressing emotions might arise during your day without a moment’s notice and the presence of both emotional and physical depression symptoms may leave your mind cloudy. While trying to do daily tasks, you might feel like you are not being productive enough, or not even thinking clearly. Whether your feelings are triggered by your current life situation or a chronic depressive disorder, depression can hamper and harm your life in a variety of ways.

Depression Is More Common Than You Might Think

Anxiety and depression are two of the most common problems facing individuals today and statistics show that depression diagnoses have increased substantially. The difference between the two is that individuals are more likely to admit to anxiety issues, making depression seem less common and less socially acceptable. Because of this perception, you may think that you are weak-minded and that you should be able to pull yourself out of depression. However, you are not alone in your struggle, and depression treatment can help you feel like yourself again.

Sometimes it can be difficult to determine where and when your depression began. In most cases, depression creeps into your life after an accumulation of negative events. You may not even realize depression symptoms as you begin to experience them. Thankfully, depression treatment sessions can help you better understand the causes of your depression and put you on a positive path toward experiencing your joy in life again.

Depression Treatment Can Give You The Hope And Support You Need To Feel Happy

In a motivating, supportive and educational environment, you can learn how to change your feelings of lethargy, hopelessness and helplessness and develop the confidence needed to live a healthy, joyful and fulfilling life. Using cognitive behavioral counseling strategies and techniques, I can help you address your negative thoughts and set personal goals to change your patterns of thinking.

An initial assessment will help us better understand your specific symptoms of depression and where these emotions stem from. If it is determined that you could be suffering from chronic depressive disorder, medication and other support systems may be necessary in order to ensure you have all of the resources you need to find relief. Sometimes you know why you’re feeling sad, discouraged, or hopeless...and sometimes you don’t. Many things can play a role in depression: biology, genetics, health conditions, trauma, grief, life changes, stressful events and many other things. Having depression is not a flaw in your character. Depression can affect anyone, and regardless of the cause, there are many good ways to treat it.

One activity I have found particularly helpful in treating depression is journaling your thoughts and emotions throughout your day. Journaling is also a powerful tool to use because it gives you a sense of yourself as you put your thoughts in writing, and it helps you to reflect and observe your emotional and behavioral patterns.

Our depression treatment sessions also include a multitude of other educational tools. I believe you should be a part of your own treatment. After assessing your overall mental health, past experiences and your current emotional state, I will begin to motivate and support you with proven strategies and tools. Through implementing what you learn during our sessions, you will begin to feel hopeful as you walk out of my office, knowing you have the ability to find happiness.

After treating individuals with depression for 10 years, I have grown to love helping people find joy again. And, joy is possible for you, too. With the help and support of an experienced and compassionate therapist, you can begin to better understand your depression, set small, attainable goals and begin feeling better and functioning with more lightness and ease.

I believe that I could benefit from help, but I still have questions and concerns about depression treatment…

I worry about the social stigma of depression.

Individuals suffering from depression are their harshest critics. Even though you might view depression as unattractive and worry about what others might think, avoiding treatment will only cause you to struggle for longer periods of time. Many people with depression suffer in silence for fear of rejection or judgment but the first way of lessening the stigma is to recognize that you are not alone. Accepting and talking about depression are great “Stigma Busters.” Acceptance doesn’t mean you’re necessarily happy about feeling depressed, but some people find they’re not able to accept it until they can talk about it. Depression is very common and by allowing me to help you sort your emotions out, you can begin to feel like yourself again. Finding relief through depression treatment sessions could even inspire those around you to improve their lives.

How do I know I have true depression versus bouts of hopelessness, fatigue or motivation?

True depression is not the same as occasionally feeling emotionally bad or down. Typically, we would want to determine how many symptoms of depression you have, how long you have had them and how much they interfere with your life in order to live it normally. There are some typical common depression assessments that we will use to ask questions about common symptoms as well as how much these symptoms might be affecting your ability to function and maintain healthy relationships. In a nurturing and understanding environment, I can work with you in helping you to better cope with the challenges of depression. I will help you to understand your specific depression, the possible causes of it and how to manage it. We can collectively discover the things that are blocking you from feeling better and I can assist you in setting realistic and positive personal goals.

How long does therapy typically last?

The answer to this question will vary from person to person. Everyone works at different paces, but the amount of treatment needed would also depend on the number of factors that are involved. While some depression treatment can go on for an extended period of time, typically clients can feel improvement between the 1st and 12th session. Depression treatment should focus on goals and outcomes, usually measured with reduction or elimination of symptoms experienced. In weekly depression treatment sessions, together, we can assess your goals, where you are emotionally and where you would like to be in order to determine how long you should stay in treatment. While most individuals feel confident moving forward with the tools and information learned during sessions, the effectiveness of treatment depends on how open you are to disclose your experience and emotions. By putting in the effort to dedicate the time and energy to combat depression, treatment can give you what you need to feel healthier and happier.