Understanding Depression
Depression has always been debilitating, with persons developing many irrational beliefs about themselves. Their experience of feelings of inadequacy, victimization and that they are always in the wrong along with negative thoughts, feelings and emotions contribute to some more of the signs of depression.
It is sad to see that positivity deludes such people, with them feeling useless and inadequate when they commit even the smallest of faults. These people fail to view an error as a way to improve him or her and instead waste time and energy in just worrying and being more and more not motivated to positive outcomes.
It is true that the depressed stop enjoying the good aspects of life and feel that they are useless and need no care. This loss of self-esteem makes them take less pleasure in caring for themselves and think that it is wrong to do things that they enjoy. You would notice that they even lose interest in doing things and experiencing pleasures that they once enjoyed.
All these attitudes makes these people feel inferior, a burden in life and dissatisfied with the things they have in life.
Medications have helped to cure depression conditions, but they cannot alone cure a person of depression.
Therapy plays a great role along with medications in the treatment of depression, with cognitive behavioral therapy being recognized as one of the most effective therapies that treat depression and reduce relapses. It is worth knowing that cognitive therapy also teaches patients to deal with depression even when the patient is not on therapy and gets a depression attack.
Cognitive behavioral therapy techniques for depression
Cognitive behavioral therapy is an all comprehensive therapy that includes various talk therapies helps to bring hope in the patient. It is fast, effective and a long-lasting therapy that aims at training depression patients to break their unproductive and negative thinking patterns with evaluating their validity. It is noticed that the benefits from this therapy accrue quite suddenly.
Depression could start off in many as irrational beliefs, with a person believing that he or she is not adequate or is at a fault if one has a disagreement with ones near and dear.
It is the use of cognitive behavioral therapy techniques for depression that help to evaluate and help the person to change his or her irrational beliefs. It helps patients to realize that changes need to be made with substituting unhealthy beliefs with healthy and realistic beliefs.
Next depression, characterized by negative self-talk is greatly helped with cognitive behavioral therapy with instilling positive thoughts that leads to positive action. It teaches one to view things in a positive light, instead of viewing everyday small mishaps as something very serious or unlucky.
Replacing negative self-talk by a positive one that is solution oriented rather than problem oriented helps. Viewing a traffic jam as a challenge or exercising an option to solve the problem rather than dwelling on it as a problem is what this therapy is all about.
Cognitive behavioral therapy instills the idea of action than dwelling on the misfortune. It encourages a person to not think of the worst outcome in a situation, but fix the problem. It encourages the affected to make a check on reality.
This would make him or her realize at most times that one is actually perfect. Mistakes are a part of each human being, with this realization making one feel that it is best to let go of failure beliefs and refocus on making things right.
Cognitive behavioral therapy does the wonderful job, with the therapist helping patients to not just test their thoughts, but also to take prompt action. He sets up the stage with expecting the patient to take action once he or she acknowledges ones irrational thoughts. Once these depressive and irrational thoughts are set aside, cognitive behavioral therapists help their patients to engage in activities that are really healthy and enjoyable for them. The therapist and the depressed would soon be able to compile a list of activities that he or she enjoys and should do.
Homework forms a part of cognitive behavioral therapy with the patient required write things that one is grateful for, writing down negative thoughts, turning them into positive ones and then writing things that one is excited about each day.
It is finally important to understand that cognitive behavioral therapists ask their patients to review their improvement. This will help the therapists to know if the cognitive behavioral therapy techniques for depression are working well.
Does cognitive behavioral therapy really differ from traditional talking therapy
Yes it does differ in various respects like length of treatment, structure and homework that is to be done by the patient. Unlike long traditional talking therapy or psychoanalysis the sessions for cognitive behavioral therapy is restricted to just 16.
Also the number of sessions is decided much in advance. Next, therapists that conduct cognitive behavioral therapy have a fixed lesson plan for each session. This lesson plan could include the specific techniques to be learnt by the patients, and the goals to be achieved.
Most importantly cognitive behavioral therapy aims at engaging the patient regularly to identify the triggers of negative thinking and practice ways of substituting them with positive thoughts. The patient is asked to keep a journal to pen down their thoughts and challenge themselves to find solutions.
Cognitive behavioral therapy has strong points that help in their use to replace medications in serious cases of depression also. In addition this therapy presents very less chances of relapse once one is treated. However it is worthwhile knowing that the motivation of the patient to embrace changes in thought and action plays a vital role.
As a last note it is best to state that research shows that patients that cooperate by doing their homework and develop a strong belief in their improvement are sure to be benefitted greatly by cognitive behavioral therapy techniques for depression.