Depression help and treatment with CBT Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Hypnotherapy

Depression treated with CBT Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Hypnotherapy at the Carterton Therapy Practice providing effective brief therapy for Depression using CBT Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Hypnotherapy.

Depression is far more widespread than is realised, and it's increasing. It can have many faces. If you are not aware of your feelings and emotions on a daily basis, it can creep up on you and cause misery in your life when you least expect it.

We get sad when we fail in our exams, when we're rejected by the person we love, or when someone very close to us passes away. Depression, however, could be more serious than just plain sadness. It can be a chronic, disabling condition.

“I was on various anti-depressants, but not for long – I didn’t function very well on them. I felt sort of flattened out. Plus I found another way…” He trails off. And that was? “Hypnotherapy.”
Jack Dee - Comedian

Day to day living has become more stressful for some people, changes in society, the general break up of families, job insecurity, being too fat, too thin, those who do not feel themselves successful - even though they may have a nice car, house or family - as well as many other causes. Depression can create life-long consequences that could ruin your confidence, self-esteem, your health, and your well-being.

There have been many misconceived ideas about depressed people, that they are "weak", or just feel sorry for themselves. They are told to "snap out of it", or "pull yourself together", or "there are other people worse off than you". This is certainly not the case and is not the answer, and often makes the person feel guilty or worse about their condition.

What does it feel like?

Most people with depression will not have all the symptoms listed below, but most will have at least five or six.

• Feel unhappy most of the time (but may feel a little better in the evenings)
• Lose interest in life and can't enjoy anything
• Find it harder to make decisions
• Can't cope with things that you used to
• Feel utterly tired
• Feel restless and agitated
• Lose appetite and weight (some people find they do the reverse and put on weight)
• Take 1-2 hours to get off to sleep, and then wake up earlier than usual
• Lose interest in sex
• Lose your self-confidence
• Feel useless, inadequate and hopeless
• Avoid other people
• Feel irritable
• Feel worse at a particular time each day, usually in the morning
• Think of suicide.

You may not realise how depressed you are for a while, especially if it has come on gradually. You try to struggle on and may even start to blame yourself for being lazy or lacking willpower. It sometimes takes a friend or a partner to persuade you that there really is a problem which can be helped.

You may start to notice pains, constant headaches or sleeplessness. Physical symptoms like this can be the first sign of depression.

Who gets depressed?

Any person, young or old, male or female can become depressed, even millionaires suffer depression. It can affect both sexes and at any age, has many causes and, as a result, has many viable avenues of treatment. Mildly and severely depressed clients find themselves in situations that are enormously painful and who need help to find a way out. It can affect the sufferer physically, causing problems such as over or under-eating, sleep disturbance, a lowered sex drive, fatigue and anxiety. Cognitively (the mind/thoughts), depression can affect ability to think clearly, making it difficult to focus attention, poor memory, causing the depressed to make errors in judgment and decision making. The sufferer projects the future to be as painful as the past.

During the past few years, CBT has become the first choice of therapeutic modality, encouraged and recommended by GP's and the psycho-medical fraternity.

Harry uses Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) to treat depression, together with other therapies (when necessary, according to the client's needs). Utilising psychoanalysis within hypnosis shows greater therapeutic outcomes than drug therapy. Although medication may have a faster effectiveness for sleep problems, it has distinctively more side effects and can become habit forming. They can also produce undesired thought and feeling processes, which can prevent new learning abilities. Anti-depressant agents have been found to have a high incidence of relapse.

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy addresses the feelings of hopelessness that accompany depression. How we think, feel, behave, maintains our emotional imbalance. Cognitive therapy changes the pessimistic ideas, unrealistic expectations, and overly critical self-evaluations that create depression and sustain it.

Cognitive therapy helps the depressed person recognise which life problems are critical, and which are minor. It also helps him/her to develop positive life goals, and a more positive self-assessment.

Psychotherapy / CBT provides and creates skill building, problem solving, goal achieving skills and a greater degree of empowerment and perception. These are things an anti-depressant agent cannot accomplish. Relapse rate is significantly reduced as these techniques provide effective preventative skills. Clinical hypnosis creates effectiveness of psychoanalysis, which enables unique, positive changes to take place in the depressed individual. People that have been depressed for a long time, sometimes from their childhood days, usually have difficulty being positive on a day to day basis. By using the extraordinary resources of the unconscious mind, one has the ability to make choices that will bring about the kind of things that you, the sufferer, want to have happen tomorrow, and in the future, which leads to thinking differently, acting differently, and eventually feeling differently.

Psychotherapy and CBT are well established in treating depression, incorporated with relaxation/hypnosis, provides positive outcomes within the therapy framework.

                     Relax =
                                     taking back control =
                                                                             building confidence =
                                                                                                                      enhanced self-esteem YES

CBT - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Hypnotherapy can help you to resolve the emotional conflicts that are causing the problem. These are nothing more than bottled up emotions and so once found and released, the symptom itself then dissolves.

An interesting note on travel

Depression does not have to control every aspect of your life and although considered a ‘pre-existing’ medical condition it should not stop you from taking a holiday. There are many travel insurance companies where you can declare your condition online and pay any extra premium if necessary. This site offers cover for existing conditions http://www.cheaptravelinsurance.com/travel-insurance/pre-existing-medical-cover.htm