Depression can affect how a person thinks, feels and relates to the world around them. While feeling sad or low is a normal part of life, clinical depression is different. It can persist for weeks or months, return at regular intervals, and have a significant impact on motivation, relationships, work and self-esteem.
How do I know if I am depressed?
Depression has entered our common language as a way of describing a particular mood. However, when we say we are feeling depressed, we are often talking about feeling sad or gloomy, a feeling that we expect to lift in a day or two. Clinical depression is different from this. It is not simply a transient mood, but something that can persist for weeks or even months and may return at regular intervals.
Clinical depression is often characterised by a loss of interest and motivation, persistent feelings of sadness, guilt, irritability, hopelessness, a lack of enjoyment, and difficulties in making decisions. Depression is also very common and is often accompanied by anxiety.
How do we understand depression?
Some people wrongly regard depression as trivial or as a sign of weakness, something people ought to be able to simply snap out of. This attitude vastly underestimates the debilitating effects of depression and can create stigma, making it harder for people to talk about what they are experiencing or reach out for support.
Depression can also be understood as a medical condition, and this has helped reduce some of the stigma around it. However, depression is rarely explained by one factor alone. It is often the result of a combination of influences, including biological disposition, relationships, life experiences, current stress and personal history. While medication can be helpful for some people, psychotherapy can help address the wider emotional and relational factors that contribute to depression.
How did I come to feel depressed?
The factors that contribute to depression are unique to each person. They may include lessons we learned about ourselves in the past, stresses placed upon us in the present, and the sense of security or insecurity we experience within our relationships.
For some people, the trigger for depression may be clear, such as the loss of a loved one, difficulties at work or painful feelings about themselves. For others, the cause may feel less obvious, with depression seeming to arrive automatically or out of the blue. However depression develops, the impact on everyday life can be severe.
How does depression affect people?
Depression can affect many areas of life and is not something a person can simply snap out of. It can be debilitating, affecting energy, motivation, sleep, relationships, confidence and the ability to manage everyday responsibilities.
How does psychotherapy help with depression?
Depression can feel elusive and difficult to understand. When a person feels depressed, it can be hard to think clearly, know what they are feeling, or make sense of what has brought on their low mood.
Psychotherapists are trained to listen carefully and help identify thoughts and feelings that may be operating beneath the surface of awareness. As these thoughts and feelings are explored, a clearer story can begin to emerge about why someone feels the way they do. Through this process, therapy can help a person develop a deeper understanding of the issues contributing to their depression and consider how these difficulties may be addressed.
Finding the right support
Working with depression takes a skilled and supportive clinician. Your therapist at Hitchin Counselling and Psychology is fully trained and professionally accredited, so you can feel confident that you are being supported by someone with the experience to help people work through difficulties with depression. Therapy also offers a confidential, ethical and respectful space in which your privacy, autonomy and wellbeing are carefully protected.
Common effects of depression include:
- Loss of interest and motivation
- Sleep disturbance
- Feeling hopeless
- Anger and irritability
- Relationship problems
- Low self-esteem
- Problems with assertiveness
- Work problems