Therapy for Depression
What you may be experiencing:
Depression does not discriminate against age, race, culture, ethnicity, gender, or social status. While some of these factors may increase your risk, none of these protect you against it.
Feelings of sadness, pessimism, hopelessness, emptiness, or anxiousness are often persistent. You may feel irritable and experience feelings of guilt. You’ve probably lost interest in a lot of the activities and things that used to bring you joy. You’re having a hard time making decisions, and your sleeping patterns might be severely disrupted, either sleeping too little or too much. Changes in appetite are also common. Suicidal thoughts can also be a difficult symptom to experience.
You may find yourself pulling away from friends and family, probably feeling as though you’re a downer or a burden to them. You might be finding it harder and harder to keep up with the deadlines and responsibilities at work or school, and maybe you’re even relying on drugs or alcohol to cope.
How we can help:
At first, your therapist will likely want to get an understanding of your life as a whole. What is your physical self-care like currently? What about your psychological & emotional self-care? Social life? Professional or school life? Is spirituality or religion important to you? Getting to know how your life is operating currently will help your therapist get an accurate picture of what’s happening.
It will also be important to understand what depression actually looks like in your life as it can mean different things for different people. How do you experience it? What are your symptoms? What’s the worst part? Understanding how it impacts you will be key in the treatment planning process. Understanding and validating your current experience is an important step.
Your therapist may then explain the cycle and how it helps to self-sustain by keeping you unmotivated. How it keeps you from doing the very things necessary to lift you of that state. You may be asked to keep an activity diary to see if those activities, or lack of, are increasing or decreasing your life satisfaction.
Through behaviour activation we would want to increase activities that bring you mastery and pleasure, increasing your happiness. Challenging negative thoughts is another way of breaking you out of that cycle. We would also want to look at improving your sleep and social supports. All of this however, starts with small, simple, actionable and manageable goals. We are not looking to overwhelm you. We’re looking for small changes you can feel proud of.
After working with us:
After working with us, it would be our hope that as you’ve learned about the cycle of depression, you learn an understanding of how it self-maintains, and what it takes to to break that cycle.
You are now able to take steps towards making meaningful changes in your life that bring about motivation. Motivation isn’t always something that we wait for, motivation often comes after we have done something. And as you’ve learned these new skills, you’re better equipped to take steps towards creating your own happiness, knowing that every step you take is one small building block towards a better, healthy, happier, and more balanced life.
Better sleep (maybe through the use of a sleep routine or a guided sleep meditation), a healthier more balanced diet, a healthy social life, adequate self care both mentally, physically and emotionally, and balance with work and school. Living a life that is better aligned with your values, a life that brings you satisfaction.
You are not a burden, let us be there:
We would be honoured to a part of your healing journey.
