Depression

When staring my new article for a local magazine in Frederiksberg I needed to do a research in advance, because the topic was not an easy one - Depression. How can I define the term depression with simple words? In short I can say that depression is a feeling, negative emotion, no interest to anything, loss of energy, stress, low self-esteem etc.

Depression can be treated with or without medications. If you notice the symptoms on time and visit a psychotherapist immediately it is possible to handle your bad mood only with several sessions of talk therapy (sometimes the psychotherapy is called a talk therapy).

We shouldn’t forget that the psychotherapist is a well experienced person, in the best case educated and trained for your specific issue and able to provide an adequate treatment. As a therapist he or she is not supposed to give the patient the ready solution of the problem. The therapist is responsible to support the client by diving in his emotion, feelings and thoughts and find the roots of his problems and eliminate them. In fact the patient is responsible for the healing of the problem.

Here is a short classification of the main symptoms of depression. Depressed Mood is usually felt as sadness, emptiness, irritation, decrease of willingness for fun.
Weight changes are also a symptom for depression. Especially when you have to loose some but it seems to be mission impossible. Issues with lack of sleep are also categorized as depression symptoms but they can be a result of stress. The insomnia leads to no will for physical exercises, loss of tonus and low self esteem.
Depression is resulting in decreasing of the mood, even loss of the good mood, diving into an inner world, no ability to have a normal relationship, lack of positive thinking and even thoughts of death and suicide.

No doubt that such condition can be treated only by a psychotherapist most probably with the help of medications. The medications help by regulating the mood. It is extremely important that when you are using medications you can’t just stop using them. It should be done only under therapist supervision and the doses are decreasing day by day. Otherwise it can be dangerous for the patient. According to the best practices such therapy is successful when combining both psychotherapy and medication treatment. Talk therapy has a key role, but you should be very careful when choosing your therapist. It should be a person with high degree of education, a number of trainings passed; a person with recommendations, able to build confidence. Sometimes the talk therapies against depression are combined with family therapy where the family of the patient is participating in the meeting sessions. Not to underestimate that every family member should have a task and has to report at every session the progress of the particular task.