Depression: Tips 1

When I work with people who are experienceing depression, I use a number of techniques. These depend on the history of the individual, and on the nature and course of the depressive feelings and thoughts. One thing I tell my clients is that you are not helpless and there are things you can do which can influence and change those depressive thoughts.

Tip One: Pay attention to the good things that happen in your day, and to the good things you have in your life. Put your attention on who cares about you, what you can do, what you have accomplished.

To make this more effective, set a goal of five or ten of these thoughts every day. Keep a journal every night just before going to sleep of those things that you notice or think about.

At first, this may be difficult, but it will get easier. You may find that more and more, you are noticing the positive.

On Listening

Often, with couples, the issue is not about stopping the anger, it is about healing the hurt. To heal the hurt, you need to be able to hear the hurt. And that can mean listening to someone else's before you listen to your own. Sometimes when we truly listen, so as to understand the hurt that is below the anger of our partner, our own anger will dissipate. That is because it is often also about hurt and wounding.

Wounds take two forms, or perhaps have two origins--sometimes they are from our partner, but many times they are from vulnerabilities that we have in our past, that make us vulnerable in the present.

Watch for your vulnerabilities, from the past and the present. Try to separate one from the other. Commit to listening.

You know you have stopped listening when you start talking about yourself, not about your partner.

The Other Side #1

Sometimes people will say to a therapist, " Don't you get tired of hearing about people's problems?"

At some level, I wonder about what that question means. For some people, it is a question about " do you really care about me, or are you interested in me?" For some people it is a comment on themselves and how they are feeling about themselves. Sometimes it is about trust, and trusting.

But, beyond that... from this side of the counselling relationship:

This is what I would like people to know: For me, it is an honour and a privilege when people allow me into their lives, and share with me what is going on with them. I think it takes an incredible amount of courage to be able to ask for help and to open oneself up the way one does in a counselling situation. The trust people place in me is sacred, and I hold it dearly.