Depression Therapy
Has Depression Made Everything In Life Feel Like A Chore?
Do you feel like you’ve lost your “spark” in life? Are you struggling with feelings of numbness and loss of interest? Deep down, do you just not feel like yourself anymore?
When you’re living with depression, it’s easy to feel like you’re simply going through the motions. Every little thing starts to seem like a chore—even the things you normally love. Maybe you feel burnt out at work and you don’t have the energy to show up in your relationships. You might isolate and turn down social outings with friends. You probably wish you could talk to someone about your sadness, but you may be afraid of burdening other people.
You Might Feel Numb, Sad, And Anxious
Depression can make you feel numb and disconnected from your feelings, but it can also make you sad, angry, and overwhelmed with distressing emotions. Sometimes these extremes can be physical in nature, too. Depression can cause you to sleep more than usual or suffer from lack of sleep. Perhaps you eat too much or too little, leading to worrisome changes in your weight.
Sometimes anxiety and depression go hand in hand, as anxiety often tries to compensate for your low mood by keeping you alert and high-strung. For this reason, it’s often hard to recognize depression if anxiety’s a contributing factor.
If you want to find relief from your depression, we encourage you to pursue therapy with us. Here at The Growing Mind, our goal is to help you renew your sense of joy and feel more like yourself again.
Many People With Depression Suffer In Silence
The number-one cause of disability in the world is depression. Most estimates say that one in 12 adults suffer from the condition, but the actual percentage is probably much higher. After all, depression often causes people to isolate and resist seeking help, so a lot of cases go unreported. This means that millions of people struggle in silence and fail to get the support they need.
Depression can arise because of trauma, genetics, unresolved grief and loss, and many other factors. Sometimes it’s the result of stressful life transitions like divorce, empty nesting, or even becoming a new parent. High expectations from families and workplaces can also cause depression, especially when those expectations aren’t particularly realistic.
Oftentimes, however, it’s hard to identify the root cause of depression. As a result, many people end up trying to treat symptoms rather than the core issue. At The Growing Mind, we want to help you alleviate your symptoms, but we also want to go deeper and get to the root of your depression. This allows for lasting healing instead of just momentary relief.
Therapy Can Help You Break The Hold Depression Has On Your Life
Let’s face it: if you’ve struggled with depression for a while, there have probably been times when people made you feel misunderstood, invisible, and hurt. They may have told you “What do you have to be depressed about?” or “Oh, everyone gets depressed from time to time.” In therapy, we know how hard it is to hear these remarks. That’s why we seek to honor your feelings and validate your pain.
None of your feelings are invalid or unacceptable. In fact, accepting your feelings is the first step to changing them. As counterintuitive as it sounds, it’s okay to feel hopeless. Our job is to be the holder of hope until you get your sense of hope back.
What To Expect In Depression Counseling Sessions
Therapy can help you learn new coping strategies and emotional regulation techniques for managing your depression. At the same time, our approach is ultimately focused on deeper work—we want to explore the root of your depression and figure out why it’s there. Together, you and your counselor will look at any unhealed emotional wounds, such as trauma or grief and loss, that may have caused depression.
Getting to the root of your depression can help you identify the unconscious patterns and themes that keep you stuck in the same loop of negative thinking. You will learn to question the things you tell yourself and challenge the beliefs you hold about who you are. Doing so can open the door to new ways of thinking and help you improve your self-confidence.
Tailoring Your Depression Treatment Plan
We take a very attachment-focused approach to the healing process. We like to look at how past and present relationships may have contributed to your depression. Together, we’ll explore any patterns of rejection, criticism, or neglect that have negatively affected your mental health.
We utilize elements of psychodynamic, psychoanalytic, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) approaches in depression therapy. IFS allows us to “look under the hood” and figure out what’s really keeping depression in place. It views the self as a family of many different parts, each of which has its own function. So maybe there’s a part of you that likes to hibernate and keep to yourself because of how overwhelming the world is. IFS can help you understand how this part is fueling your depression and use that knowledge to challenge negative patterns of behavior.
No matter how depressed you feel right now, a sense of inner peace is possible once you understand what’s behind the sadness and self-doubt. By healing the emotional wounds at the root of your depression, you can break the hold it has on your life and embrace a more hopeful future.
You May Have Some Questions And Concerns About Depression Therapy…
I’m afraid that if I acknowledge my depression, I’ll sink even further into it.
Accepting the reality of depression and trying to understand it creates a pathway for change and healing. There is an old saying that what we resist persists, and this is true of mental health issues. The more you try to bury certain thoughts and feelings, the more likely they are to come back stronger when they resurface. An emotional wound is like a physical wound—it can’t get better if you don’t treat it. Therapy is a chance to safely acknowledge and process your emotional wounds so that they can heal.
I’m afraid of people knowing I’m in therapy.
The stigma surrounding depression is very real. Other people may tell you to just “snap out of it” or “stop feeling sorry for yourself,” as if depression is a character flaw or something you can will yourself out of. Feeling misunderstood and invalidated can add to feelings of disconnection and loneliness, making depression even worse. In therapy, we want to give you skills for dealing with people that don’t understand depression. The good news is that they don’t have to know you’re seeing a therapist—depression counseling with us is 100-percent confidential.
I don’t think therapy will actually help. I’ve been depressed for too long.
It’s easy to feel like depression will never go away when you’ve been depressed for as long as you can remember. But therapy gives you a chance to dig deep, uncover the root causes of your troubles, and process the stuck points that haven’t been resolved. When this happens, new possibilities for regulating your symptoms emerge. With new knowledge and understanding comes new ways of experiencing transformation.
Let Us Help You Regain Your Spark In Life
Depression is like a hibernation place that keeps you isolated and alone. We want to help you feel safe enough to come out again. If you want to rekindle your spark in life and begin the healing process, you can use the scheduling form to book a free, 30-minute phone consultation.
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