Counseling & Therapy for Depression
Access the Help You Need and Deserve and Experience Everything Life Has to Offer
If you’re struggling with depression, you’d likely consider just about anything to escape the shadow that’s been hanging over your life each and every day.
Fortunately, help is available.
You don’t have to struggle alone. In fact, you don’t need to keep struggling at all!
Of course, we all have our down days. Feeling sad is a perfectly natural human emotion, and one that shouldn’t be denied or ignored.
However, while feeling down or a little blue may affect your energy level and desires for a couple of days, depression is entirely different … Depression doesn’t just “go away.”
Instead, depression slowly sucks all of the joy out of life.
Everything – even just getting out of bed each morning – requires a huge amount of effort, and nothing seems to bring a smile to your face, at least not for long.
While most people try to push through and hope things turn around on their own, as depressed days turn into weeks, and weeks into months and even years, feelings of disappointment, self-criticism, and hopelessness set in.
To make matters worse, it probably feels like no one understands why you feel the way you do … not even you.
If any of this sounds or feels familiar, I get it.
And it’s time for you to get the professional help you need and deserve …
Why Counseling & Therapy for Depression?
A lot of things can cause depression, including physical issues, such as nutritional deficiencies, allergies, and infections.
So, if you think you’re struggling with depression, the first thing I’d recommend is contacting your physician to schedule a complete physical examination.
However, once you’ve ruled out any physical causes for your depression, then it’s time to find a mental health professional who specializes in depression treatment.
Why not just take antidepressants?
As with anxiety and stress, depression is often caused by subconscious thoughts, feelings, and beliefs we have about our relationships with others and ourselves.
While antidepressant medications may be necessary to help you cope with depression’s symptoms long enough to regain a sense of “normalcy,” they can’t help you actually work through and resolve the underlying causes of your depression.
This is why professional counseling and psychotherapy – whether or not they’re used in combination with antidepressants – have been shown time and time again to be the most effective depression treatment options available.
Unlike medications alone, counseling and therapy can help you:
- Recognize the triggers for your depression;
- Develop techniques to reduce depression’s symptoms;
- Understand the underlying causes of your depression;
- Resolve any anxiety, stress, or relationship issues that may be contributing to your depression;
- Acknowledge and work through any past trauma that lies at the root of your depression;
- Learn new ways of thinking about and reacting to life events;
- Overcome negative self-talk and any feelings of guilt you may be harboring; and
- Identify and reframe any inaccurate or unhelpful beliefs or perceptions you may have about yourself and others, in order to prevent your depression from returning in the future.
In other words, counseling and therapy can help you not only cope with depression, but work through and resolve the underlying issues that lead to it, so you can finally start moving forward in your relationships and life with confidence and optimism.
How Do Counseling & Therapy Work?
We’re all unique individuals with our own ways of perceiving and interacting with others and the world around us. Counseling and therapy for depression need to be tailored to each individual, which is why I don’t provide any sort of one-size-fits-all depression treatment services.
That being said, unlike a lot of therapists, I’m very interactive and I’m not just going to “sit there” and listen to your problems.
I typically start each session with a brief meditation and other mindfulness therapy techniques to help you become more grounded, relaxed, and focused on the present, as well as provide you a place you can return to whenever you need it during our work together.
From there, we may use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and IFS Therapy techniques to look at the thoughts, feelings, and parts of you that lead to your depression or make it worse, as well as use more body-oriented therapy techniques (such as Sensorimotor Therapy, Hakomi Therapy, Mindfulness, and EMDR) to look at how different experiences make you feel – not just emotionally, but physically – so you can manage those feelings more effectively.
Why?
Because our thoughts affect how we feel, emotionally and physically, and how you feel affects how you think.
For example, your heart may feel as heavy as a rock, or your head may feel cloudy. You may feel sadness as a weight on your shoulders or grief as a dull pain in your chest.
Recognizing these types of body sensations are part of what’s known as body-oriented or somatic therapy.
By identifying the emotions that accompany these types of physical sensations, you can then go back and listen to how you’re talking about and to yourself while feeling these things physically – you may feel that there’s something wrong with you or even tell yourself that you’re not good enough.
We can then look at the source of those thoughts and feelings – the defense mechanisms and beliefs you’ve picked up during the course of your life that are likely no longer serving your best interests – so you can start consciously creating the change you seek.
In other words, effective counseling and psychotherapy isn’t just about changing the way you think …
The goal of our work together is for you to understand how your thoughts and emotions affect the way you feel physically, and then use that information to have greater insight into how you think and feel about yourself in order to create true healing, growth, and change.
Are Depression Counseling & Therapy Right for You?
If you’re hesitant about counseling and psychotherapy, I understand …
Most of us have a tendency to want to “grin and bear it” – to try and minimize, deny, or “stuff” our pain, so we can keep on “keeping on.”
But when depression has been slowly consuming your relationships and your life for weeks, months, or years, it’s time to ask yourself, “What do I have to lose by seeking professional help?”
What would it be worth to you to no longer feel this way? Because you can!
I’ve helped countless clients cope with, work through, and overcome depression over the course of the past two decades, and I look forward to helping you do the same.
If you’re ready to do the work necessary to better understand who you are and create a healthier, more joyous relationship with yourself and the world around you, I encourage you to contact me today at 510-866-4781 or email me at eleanor@eleanorlew.com with any questions you have or to schedule a free, 15-minute, initial telehealth consultation. I look forward to speaking with you and helping you discover all of the joy life has to offer.