"What is depression like? It’s like drowning even though you know how to swim."
This quote perfectly describes how absolutely alone and terrifying it is to be imprisoned inside the inescapable bog that comprises serious depression. You feel utterly helpless, leaden, dull, unable to move. You are trapped—an unwilling witness to those living what appear to be happy lives. Anger at everyone’s obliviousness to your condition invades your lungs, heart, and spirit. The waves of pincer-like pain keep pummeling your brain as your body is dragged down, down, down onto the inky, cold depths of the ocean floor, choking you.
Depression (major depressive disorder) is a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. Fortunately, it is also treatable. Depression causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease your ability to function at work and at home. Depression often manifests physically, through stomach pains, headaches, disrupted or excessive sleep, and motor control difficulty. While the exact causes of depression are unknown, a predisposition for it runs in families, and it can be triggered by trauma and adverse life circumstances.
Depression is a mental illness which is characterized by prolonged emotional symptoms including:
- Apathy
- Sadness
- Lack of motivation
- Guilt
- Exhaustion
- Irritability
Depression therapy seeks to improve the client's life satisfaction by targeting symptoms with evidence-based interventions.
Emotional regulation. Techniques to target: Persistent sadness, worthlessness, hopelessness, excessive and inappropriate guilt, irritability or anger.
Behavior. Healthy lifestyle and mindfulness skills to target: Unregulated appetite and poor or excessive sleep, difficulty concentrating and making decisions, as well as challenges associated with functional impairment, like getting out of bed or leaving the house.
Work. Assertiveness and time management skills to target: Decreased motivation, poor time management, decreased productivity.
Marriage. Work together to repair hurts and change relationship narratives to target: Overly negative/pessimistic, lowered libido, incomplete chores/tasks.
At Pathways Therapy Center we design our therapeutic approach based on the interventions that are best suited to our clients needs. Some of the types of therapy we regularly use in the treatment of depression are:
Individual therapy
Family therapy
CBT - cognitive behavioral therapy
Family constellation therapy
Trauma informed therapy
Schema therapy
DBT- dialectical behavioral therapy
Mindfulness skills
Experiential therapy (art, music, sand tray therapy, etc.)