A Healing Journey – 3 Ways Depression Counseling Can Guide You
In America alone, an estimated 17 million people suffer from depression.
While some remain stuck in feelings of hopelessness, others seek help by participating in depression counseling.
What many people overlook or simply misunderstand is that depression is a treatable condition. Caused by a variety of factors—biological, emotional, and situational—those suffering from depression are doing so unnecessarily.
Depression counseling is a positive first step in the healing journey to reclaiming your life.
Here are three ways counseling can guide you.
1. Locates Where the Depression Originated
As in many therapeutic approaches, depression counseling doesn’t just treat current feelings. Rather, it attempts to gain insight around where the depression may stem from.
Unsurprisingly, what you feel today may reflect emotions from earlier in your life. Even dating back to childhood, memories and conditioned responses can surface, causing emotional pain.
Coping with these unexpected and often unwelcome triggers can prove to be difficult. Because of this intense challenge, depression can quickly infiltrate your mind, body, and emotions in a debilitating way.
Depression counseling looks deeper into your emotions, finding the root cause. It helps to identify factors that may have contributed to depression.
In locating the origin of your depression, you’re essentially reclaiming control of your life and promoting self-healing.
2. Refocuses Your Mind Around Your Values
Depression often feels like you’re lost in a thick, heavy cloud of fog. It can be nearly impossible to concentrate, find solutions, or even think creatively.
Furthermore, your core values and life goals commonly become engulfed by depression. Imagine a sand castle on the beach being washed away by the incoming tide.
In other words, it can be difficult to plan or set goals too far in advance because you may feel they’ll simply be washed away.
Depression counseling works to refocus your mind around the direction you want to take in your life. It locates what you truly want and helps you learn what’s most important to you. In doing so, it helps to rebuild your “castles” to where the tide can’t destroy them.
Instead of building with sand, however, depression counseling empowers you with actionable steps to reach your destination. It helps you give strength to your core values and breathe life into your goals.
3. Empowers You With New Coping Skills
A frequent pitfall of depression is that it works a lot like a slippery slope. You may become more depressed because you feel bad for being depressed. It’s a vicious cycle, to say the least.
Depression counseling helps you to learn new skills to get out of your current headspace. Moreover, it also supports you in practicing your new coping skills in real life. And, real life is what really matters.
As you may already know, reading or even hearing a motivating speech about how to mentally fight depression can be exciting. Yet, the mental fight can quickly fall flat when it plays out in real life.
Depression isn’t something to “tough out.” Learning is far more effective.
Step by step, depression counseling identifies the unhealthy thinking patterns that keep you trapped. It also teaches you how to make a u-turn from these negative habits. Rather than “toughing it out,” you work in tandem with your brain function, understanding how to best help your own mind.
Enabling yourself with new coping skills is healing in itself. After feeling powerless for so long, taking back the power to start living your life can truly be invigorating.
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If depression has caused a blockage in your life or has held you back, please contact me today.
Together we can take the first step in your healing journey. If you’d like to learn more about depression counseling or my therapeutic approach, please visit HERE.
To learn more about how individual counseling may help, click HERE.