Therapy for depression
Depression can often show up in many different ways:
A lack of interest in the things you used to love.
A sense of no control over life, like it’s happening to you.
A pervasive aching, hollow feeling that only temporarily leaves you.
Feelings of guilt. Guilt for sleeping more, isolating more, being tired all the time, for bringing everyone down, for hating yourself, for taking up space, for not wanting anything at all.
No one seems to understand what you’re going through.
A sense of hopelessness.
Trouble feeling anything at all.
Whether you relate to some or all of these, reading this right now means something in you is shifting. Change is possible and it’s on the way.
Self Esteem
One of the first things to go is our sense of self worth. How would you rate your self worth right now? 1-10? It might be quite low at the moment. How do you respond to the number you picked? With disgust? Anger? Disappointment?
My work with you will focus on your relationship with your depression and your relationship with yourself. These responses are incredibly important to understand how our internal system perpetuates our depression, keeping us down. There is no secret to beating depression, the most realistic thing we can do is befriend it. To do that, we must befriend ourselves. Depression warps our perception and my goal is to help you find the cracks in depression’s story. To find hope, self love, and joy once again.
Why am I like this?
As a baseline, therapy is a non-judgmental space for you to talk about how hard it is to feel this way. What a relief it can be to not be so alone in this experience. That’s the first resource we build is the relationship between us. We continue to collaborate on coping mechanisms, emotional regulation techniques, and values work. These values help us assess our life for what is and isn’t serving us. Where is our energy being spent that is taking more than it’s giving? We also look at root causes to depression, where we learned to view ourselves this way and the standards we hold ourselves up too. I use a holistic approach to depression as it’s an all encompassing state. I want you to get back to living the life you deserve. That takes time, compassion, curiosity, and some hard work.
How can therapy help?
Depression has no single reason for manifesting. It may be due to biological, psychological, environmental, life transitions, loss, or likely an interplay of all of the above. What is important to realize is that it’s not your fault. There is a lot of shame in depression. A part of us that finds every reason why we deserve to be depressed and to stay that way. We will work with this part of you, learning where it comes from and what it needs from you. In the process we will unlock resources and tools to support you along the way.
