Depression & Mood Disorders:
If we are being honest, how many people really like to be asked if they are depressed? It is one of those questions that clients have often expressed frustration with being asked whether it by a family member, therapist, or a friend. There seems to be a stigma that is attached to that term which is probably why so many of my clients quietly struggled with feelings of depression without anyone knowing about it. The truth is that depression comes in all shapes and sizes and has a number of different causes. My personal approach to working with depression can best be demonstrated by this question, “Why don’t you tell me about how depression feels to you?”. For some people, depression can be more about how they think and for others it can be more about physically how it makes them feel. For some people it doesn’t affect their daily activities and for others it has impacted their lives greatly. Some of my clients even describe what I would call the “gray depression” where they are not exactly unhappy but they surely aren’t happy. Even the causes of depression can vary from purely external events in your life, existential concerns, neuro-chemical, or some combination of all three. Depression is not a blanket term with a one-sized fits all treatment approach but rather a complicated experience that requires an individualized treatment approach that helps treat “your depression” rather than just “depression”.