I specialize in individual therapy for adults that struggle with depression and burnout. Below you can find information about the signs and symptoms of depression and the treatment that I offer. Whether you lost interest in most activities, or you often feel irritable, or you are overly critical and perpetually disappointed, you may be struggling with depression.
Signs and Symptoms
Depression is more than just sadness. It affects your sleep, your ability to concentrate, your memory, your energy levels and/or your appetite. It also interferes with your ability to function and fulfill your responsibilities. Getting up in the morning can feel unbearable. It’s common to feel despair and hopelessness.
Thoughts of suicide are prevalent in depressed individuals. Read More
Treatment
To treat depression, I use a Cognitive Behavioral (CBT) model. This means that we work together at identifying the connections between your environment, your thoughts, your behaviors, your emotions, and your physical responses. To improve your mood and your body’s physiological functioning (sleep, concentration, appetite), we aim at changing your thoughts, your actions and your environment.
Typically, 10-12 sessions are helpful to improve depressive symptoms. Weekly sessions are ideal at first, followed by bi-weekly or monthly sessions. 3-month and 6-month follow-up visits can be useful to prevent relapse.
First, we explore what you can do differently to feel better. We identify specific behaviors to change. Most frequently, depressed individuals are isolating themselves and are inactive. I will help you get motivated to increase your physical activity and social interactions.
Second, we target the thoughts that are hurting you. Depressed individuals often have beliefs such as “Life sucks”, “I am stupid”, “I am worthless”, “No one cares”, “Things will never change”, etc. I help you recognize all the thoughts that you have in a given situation and I help you dig deeper to identify the thoughts that you might not even be aware of.
Third, I help you challenge the beliefs that are hindering you. I use several techniques that are effective to evaluate unhelpful and inaccurate thoughts. An example of a technique that I use is looking at the evidence for and against a thought that is keeping you down. Another technique involves developing life experiments to test out your beliefs. The objective is not to achieve positive and cheery thoughts, but by remaining objective, we want to find more balanced and realistic thoughts.
Throughout this process, recommendations for more behavior changes might emerge. Examples of behaviors changes might include the need to be more assertive, more communicative, more inquisitive or learning to be more specific in asking for what you need.
Studies show that changing your thought patterns with CBT will not only improve your mood, but also change your brain and its functioning. To learn more about research studies that use MRIs and other imaging technologies to show how CBT is associated with biological brain changes, click on the following link https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26122039
