Nowadays people are becoming more open about their mental health issues and therefore you will notice a lot of people talking about suffering from depression or being in a depressive state. Whereas such terms would warrant a lot of scrutiny and attention in the past, there have been a lot of headway in psychiatric literacy to a point that people can now easily self diagnose and seek proper medical and psychiatric attention.
To fully understand how therapies help with depression, it is important to first understand what depression is. Depression is a mood disorder that causes anxiety and can wreak havoc on a person’s social life, making it tough to hold down a job and keep one’s health in check. In extreme circumstances, even increase the risk of suicide. Indeed, depression is a factor in about 40,000 annual suicides in the United States.
People of all ages, including children and teenagers, might be affected. Depression causes persistent feelings of melancholy, emptiness, and lack of joy and as a mood disorder it can last for quite some time making it seem as if the person’s personality has changed permanently. It’s not the same as the normal ups and downs in emotion that everyone experiences. Depression can be triggered by a major life event such as a death in the family or the loss of one’s work. Depression, on the other hand, differs from the temporary sadness one may experience after a traumatic occurrence.
One’s experience with depression might range from being quite mild and fleeting to being quite severe and enduring. Depressive episodes can be one-time occurrences or recur for some people. Suicide due to depression can be avoided if patients receive the help they need. Knowing that there is a lot that can be done to aid young people who are contemplating suicide is crucial.
Types of Therapies That Have Proved Effective In Dealing With Depression
The good news is that depression and other mood disorders can be treated with a wide variety of therapeutic approaches. Effective treatment for depression often includes psychotherapy, which can aid patients in identifying the origins of their symptoms and developing more healthy coping mechanisms. Psychotherapy is a form of talking therapy used to help people with mental health issues. Establishing trust between therapist and patient is central to many schools of psychotherapy, which aim to assist patients in recognizing and changing unhelpful habits of thought and behaviour.
Talk therapy is a common term for psychotherapy since it typically entails conversation between a patient and a trained professional. However, it goes much beyond that. Professional psychotherapists have extensive education and training in a wide range of approaches they use to aid patients in their quests for emotional and mental health.
The intensity of your symptoms, your personal preferences, and your therapy goals will all play a role in determining the optimal style of psychotherapy for you. The therapeutic approaches outlined here have been shown to be effective in the treatment of depression.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Cognitive therapy is based on the idea that thoughts affect our emotion and therefore by controlling how we think about things, events and situations, we can effectively manage our emotions. Negative emotions compound depression since they create an illusion that everything is hopeless and nothing can be done to reverse a bad situation.
Depressed people typically have difficulty breaking free of destructive mental habits. These ways of thinking have the potential to shape the way we act. The patterns of cognition are then reinforced by the subsequent actions. A vicious cycle of low spirits and pessimism is thus established.
Many of our mental habits are founded on our deepest held convictions. CBT therapists aid patients in recognizing their underlying assumptions, challenging any negative ideas that may result, and making constructive changes to their actions. When your mind is locked in a negative feedback loop, it might be difficult to experience positive emotions. As part of its treatment for depression, cognitive therapy teaches patients how to recognize negative thought patterns (called cognitive distortions) and replace them with more constructive ones.
CBT was found to be equally beneficial as antidepressants in treating depressed people in one research. Those who attended all of their CBT sessions were also less likely to experience a return of depressive symptoms after therapy than those who just got medication, according to the same study.
The focus of behavioural therapy is on modifying actions that have an emotional impact. Behavioural activation is a primary focus of CBT for depression. Assisting people in doing things that make them happier is an important part of this.
Evidence suggests that cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for depression can be beneficial, and may have long-lasting effects that prevent relapse of depressed symptoms.
Problem Solving Therapy (PST)
Problems present in our lives are referred to as stressors because they lead to feelings of anxiety and stress. By identifying these stressors and dealing with them individually we can eliminate the overall feeling of hopelessness and depression. For example, financial instability can be a major stressor, but once the individual gets a good job then their path to financial stability becomes clearer.
Adaptive problem-solving and mindfulness are only two of the methods that PST draws from in order to assist people learn to manage their stress. Patients can benefit from PST because it aids in the processing of unpleasant emotions that can arise as a result of traumatic events such as the loss of a job or a loved one.
Psychodynamic Therapy
Often tracing their roots back to the client’s formative years, the unresolved tensions at the heart of psychodynamic treatment (also known as psychoanalytic therapy) are posited as a potential cause of depression. One of the main aims of this sort of treatment is to help the patient become more self-aware in terms of their whole spectrum of emotions, including the conflicting and difficult ones, and the other is to assist the patient in more constructively bearing these feelings and putting them in perspective.
In essence, If you’re looking for help for depression, it’s important that the therapist you see has experience and knowledge with the many psychotherapy methods used for this purpose. It’s important to feel comfortable with your therapist. Consider whether you and the other person will be able to work well together. It’s difficult for therapy to be effective if you and your therapist don’t get along. You could even interview multiple potential therapists before making a final decision. Learn more about their methods by inquiring about it.