Depression
Depression is more than simply feeling unhappy or fed up for a few days. Depression is a serious mental health condition that interferes with your ability to function from day to day, and may last for many years if left untreated.
Depression is not the same as sadness. While both conditions are defined by periods of sadness, gloominess, or low mood, symptoms of depression are much more severe.
Most people go through periods of feeling low, but when you’re depressed you feel persistently sad for weeks or months, rather than just a few days.
Some people think depression is trivial and not a genuine health condition. They’re wrong – it is a real illness with real symptoms. Depression isn’t a sign of weakness or something you can ‘snap out of’.
The good news is that with the right treatment and support, most people with depression can make a full recovery.
Talking therapies, such as CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy), are often used for mild depression that isn’t improving or moderate.
A summary of a few classic signs of depression:
- Marked loss of interest or pleasure in daily activities
- Fear that something awful will occur
- Loss of appetite and weight
- Fatigue/exhaustion
- Difficulties getting to sleep or excessive sleep
- Feeling restless or agitated
- Feelings of worthlessness, low self-esteem
- Frequent thoughts of planned or unplanned suicide
- Difficulties in thinking/concentrating and/or indecisiveness
Our Approach
Our Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) approach focuses on helping people suffering from depression to work directly on changing their deep-seated automatic coping mechanisms and behaviour, or maladaptation (a trait that is, or has become more harmful than helpful). This is a protective way to encourage the person to integrate themselves through a practical step by step process back into engaging in life.
CBT is not just about adhering to systematic counselling techniques over a series of sessions, but also about the therapist showing empathy and sensitivity to the client and to be able to be flexible in the way in which they are applied. People’s behaviours and emotions are influenced by their perception of events.