Depression

Depression can vary in intensity from very mild to severe.  If you are experiencing a lack of enjoyment of things, negative thinking, fatigue and/or physical aches, sadness, continuous thinking about things that bother you, hopelessness or irritability, you may be affected by depression.  Someone affected by depression doesn’t always feel sad, which is why some people don’t know they have depression.

Depression is a medical problem, which can be genetic in origin or can be caused/triggered by life events.  Depression can also happen when a person has been experiencing high levels of sustained stress for a period of time.

Therapy can help a person sort through the causes and triggers for depression symptoms, help find ways to overcome barriers to recovery, help combat negative thinking and form strategies for managing symptoms and preventing the depression from getting worse.

In extreme cases, therapy can help people with suicidal thoughts to decrease these symptoms and prevent self-harm behavior.

If a person with depression is on medication, most doctors and therapists recommend they attend therapy sessions in addition to taking their medication, because medication doesn’t fix what’s going on in a person’s life.