Counseling for Depression
| Your GP may provide you with counselling or you may be referred to a specialist counsellor or psychiatrist or psychologist, depending upon your symptoms and your response to treatment.
A course of counselling can be beneficial to many people to identify why they have become depressed . Counselling is an important part in the treatment of depression, it will help recovery and also help reduce the chances of depression reoccuring.
Your counsellor will want to find out a bit of your history to build a picture of your life, they may ask about your family, your employment and they will want to know about your depression symptoms and how they started. This will help them to decide upon the approach to take with the counselling process. |
 |
Counselling can take different forms, someone who has become depressed following the death of a loved one will need help with grieving and coming to terms with their loss, while someone with feelings of anxiety may need to learn relaxation techniques.
Counselling can be very difficult, a lot of people find it hard to admit and talk about the feelings they are experiencing or to relive a trauma. Although usually most people do feel better once they have talked about these things. For the quickest recovery it is important to attend counselling regularly to work through your experiences and feelings.
What Your Family and Friends Can Do
Depression is an illness that people who have never suffered from it find it hard to understand. I know personally I was like that myself before I had depression I never really understood just how bad the feelings are. It can be quite hard to see someone you love become withdrawn and irritable and show little or no interest in activities they once enjoyed. If the do not realise that you have an illness they may even feel hurt or rejected with your moods and lack of participation in activities you once enjoyed with that person.
It is important for your family and friends to understand that depression is an illness, and that it is not something you can just 'snap out' of but that it will take time for you to make a full recovery.
If your family find it hard to understand the illness, they can always join you on a visit to your GP and your GP can explain the illness and treatments to them. Once your family understands your illness they can help with encouragement, they can remind you to attend your counselling sessions, and they can also be there for you to talk to also. Once they know you have an illness they wont feel hurt or rejected if you turn down their invitations but will hopefully realise that it is because of the illness, they need to be patient with you and realise that you need to take things at your own speed during your recovery. They will be able to understand this better if you are open and discuss your illness with them and let them know exactly how you feel.
Self Help and Support Groups
It can be very helpful to talk to other people that are also suffering from depression. Sometimes when suffering from depression you feel like you are the only person going through it, and wonder why you 'aren't normal', it can be very reassuring know that you are not the only person to experience the feelings of depression. It also helps to be able to exchange ideas on treatments and techniques that people use in their recovery. Your GP or counsellor may be able to give you contact details of support groups in your area.
There are also a number of online forums dedicated to depression, so you can openly discuss any problems with others online that are dealing with similar problems.
