Psych-Mat

How to make your treatment for depression more effective and successful

Today’s post is directed at those who are depressed and are contemplating or already receiving treatment from a mental health professional such as a psychologist. I want to share with you some suggestions about how you can optimize the effectiveness of treatment for depression.  These suggestions are based on both published research and from my experience as a psychotherapist and as someone who has had personal experience with depression.  Most of these suggestions hold true not only for the treatment of depression but for the treatment of any psychological problem.

Depression is complex in its origin and no one therapeutic strategy works for everyone

My first suggestion is that you understand that there is no single way to treat depression.  As discussed in a previous post, depression is very complex in its causation and manifestations: one must consider genes, environment, and the interactions between these factors.  Since each one of these factors is unique for each individual, each person’s depression is different in its causation, in the way it manifests itself, and correspondingly in the way or ways it can be alleviated.  Hence there is no single miracle “cure” for depression that works for everyone. 

 

Treatment of clinical depression.

In a previous post I described the various ways depression can manifest itself and in today’s post I wish 
to focus on ways to cope with or treat clinical depression.

If you think you might be depressed, I have described in this post the steps to take to alleviate this very treatable condition.  To summarize they are:

• consult a mental health professional to obtain a qualified assessment of the degree of seriousness of your mood disturbance

• obtain from this professional a recommendation of what steps you can take to alleviate whatever degree of depression you have
• get actively involved in your recovery program
• develop a “Maintenance program” to maintain your recovery.

Are you experiencing normal sadness or clinical depression?

In the previous post I discussed the ways that ordinary sadness and clinical depression are distinguished.  However this is not always easy.  For example if you have experienced depression over a long period of time, perhaps from childhood, it may seem “normal” to you but it most definitely is not.  Therefore I recommend that you have a “depression check up” from a competent mental health professional such as a psychologist, psychiatrist or social worker. 

What you should know about depression and how to manage it

How does clinical depression differ from normal sadness?

There are three important questions about depression which I often get asked in my clinical practice:

• How does clinical depression differ from normal sadness?
• What causes depression?
• What cures depression?

 
In today’s post I will answer the first question concerning how depression is defined. In following posts I will answer the other two.

We all experience te occasional few hours or even a few days in which we feel sad, or have the “blues”.  But how is this different from what a mental health professional would diagnose as clinical depression?   The answer is not simple; clinical experience suggests that three factors must be considered: the severity, duration, and context of the mood of sadness.

How you can use natural beauty to restore yourself mentally, physically, and spiritually.

Over 200 years ago, William Wordsworth alluded to the idea that nature has the power to restore our weary hearts and minds.  In his poem “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798”, he eloquently describes how the beauty of nature can provides us with “tranquil restoration”. 

 

These beauteous forms,

Through a long absence, have not been to me

As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:

But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

And passing even into my purer mind

With tranquil restoration.

                                      

These sublime words of Wordsworth also point out that city living, whether in the 18th or 21^st centuries, often causes us to feel depleted, disconnected, and isolated, with a vague free-floating anxiety, or the painful thought that nothing makes sense including our own stressful lives.  As a result of these thoughts and feelings, we work at low efficiency with little creativity and no sense of fulfilment.  We often are irritable being barely able to tolerate the many minor difficulties of living in a complex society. 

 

The good news is that recent psychological research clearly supports the very solution that Wordsworth proposed so eloquently 212 years ago, specifically the solution of taking time to experience natural beauty in order to bring about “tranquil restoration” of our minds and souls.