Depression is a constellation of symptoms that can negatively impact how you view yourself, others and the world. For some people, it creates a persistent sad mood, while others experience depression as a lack of interest in activities once enjoyed. Other symptoms include weight loss or weight gain, decreased or increased appetite, slowed thoughts or movement, fatigue or loss of energy, feelings of worthlessness, feelings of excessive or inappropriate guilt, diminished ability to think or concentrate, indecisiveness, recurrent thoughts of death, and/or recurrent thoughts of suicide.

You may find it hard to motivate yourself to start therapy (or anything else for that matter) when depressed. Why start therapy if you feel hopeless? You may feel that there is no point, nothing will help. You may see yourself as defective or undeserving of help. You may tell yourself that you should get past this on your own. That is the depression talking! Depression is treatable and it is not your fault. Our moods cannot be managed like a light switch. There are complicated factors that contribute to depression: genetics, chemical imbalances, negative self talk, grief, loss, hardships, sustained anxiety, etc. Each person is born with a certain range of tolerance. That range of tolerance interacts with our life experiences and can either amplify or reduce your chances of becoming depressed. 

If you or your loved one is depressed, you are not alone. Depression is highly prevalent in the U.S. 7% of the population experience depression per year (approximately 14.8 million people!). Since depression impacts so many people, millions of dollars have gone into successfully identifying treatment to reduce depressive symptoms.

Treatment

Untreated depression lasts for 4-6 months for most people. That is a long time to feel depressed! Moreover, depression returns for 37% of people. It is important to work with an experienced depression mental health professional to help your depression abate quicker and to prevent it from returning. 

The therapists of Therapists of New York offer high quality evidenced based treatment for depression. Initially, we will assess how depression may be impacting you individually - in what ways is it impacting your behavior, relationships, career, schooling, etc. We will also determine the severity of your depression: mild, moderate or severe. Or maybe you’re experiencing not quite depression, but a consistent low mood. We will help you understand how your mood is impacting your life. 

Next, we establish a treatment plan. This may involve talk therapy once or twice a week, considering medication if your symptoms are more severe, minimizing exposure to aspects of your life that may exacerbate your low mood or apathy. 

Finally, the therapists at Therapists of New York incorporate elements of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), mindfulness, and psychodynamic therapy to help our patients experience relief from depression. 

See below for some examples of how the therapists at Therapists of New York would treat depression: 

• Your therapist may provide psychoeducation about how depression occurs. The focus could be on physiological events: hormonal, neurochemical and/or genetic. Or an intersection of environmental occurrences and negative thoughts: depression is caused by repeatedly feeling helplessness (e.g., being rejected when dating) and making assumptions that the cause and source of the helplessness is out of your control (I am uninteresting or unattractive).

• Your therapist may help you train your brain and body to relax, control your breathing, and stay present. This allows you to make space for calm and grounded feelings.

• Your therapist may help you identify negative thought patterns that may contribute to feelings of depression (e.g., I am always messing up at work. I must be stupid. I am going to get fired and my career will be over).

• You may learn that your depression comes from a lengthy history of feeling helpless and weak (e.g., being raised in a neglectful or abusive household) or that you developed a harsh, unrelenting, highly critical inner dialogue that creates feelings of worthlessness, guilt, and a sense of failure. The more you criticize yourself, the more you have a tendency to criticize yourself. Negative self talk compounds, especially in times of stress. 

• Your therapist may help you identify behaviors that may contribute to depression. For example, you may desperately want reassurance from others, which leads you to increase the amount of reassurance that you request from your loved ones. Due to these repeated requests, your loved ones may start to evaluate you more negatively. Subsequently, they avoid and reject you. You take these rejections as a sign of your lack of self worth and your depressive symptoms worsen. 

• Your therapist will address social or family factors that may be contributing to feelings of depression. For example, sometimes depression is anger turned inward because it does not feel safe to point that anger to others. More specifically, in some relationships, it is easier to beat up on yourself than risk ruining an important relationship. For example, a child who depends on safety from their parent would fare better if they blamed themselves rather than blame their parent who they rely on for survival. As one continues to use this strategy over time, the child may grow up to see that they use anger and self criticism as a maladaptive coping strategy.

What You Can Do to Help Yourself Overcome Depression

The best way to overcome depression is to work with a therapist. The therapists at Therapists of New York specialize in treating depression. We can help alleviate the symptoms of depression quicker than trying to muscle through it independently. Additionally, we can develop a plan to keep depression at bay or, if it does return, we can help identify the early symptoms of depression so you can stop it before it gets more severe. There is no need for you to suffer when there is effective treatment for depression.

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