Depression
Counselling for depression
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Depression
Health professionals use the words depression, depressive illness or clinical depression to refer to depression. It is very different from the common experience of feeling miserable or fed up for a short period of time.
When you're depressed, you may have feelings of extreme sadness that can last for a long time. These feelings are severe enough to interfere with your daily life, and can last for weeks or months rather than days.
Depression is quite common, and about 15% of people will have a bout of severe depression at some point in their lives. However, the exact number of people with depression is hard to estimate because many people do not get help, or are not formally diagnosed with depression.
Women are twice as likely to suffer from depression as men, although men are far more likely to commit suicide. This may be because men are more reluctant to seek help for depression.
Symptoms of depression
Many people know when they are depressed. However, some people do not realize when they are depressed. They may know that they are not right and are not functioning well, but don't know why. The following is a list of common symptoms of depression. It is unusual to have them all, but several usually develop if you have depression.
- Low mood for most of the day, nearly every day.
- Loss of enjoyment and interest in life, even for activities that you normally enjoy.
- Sadness, often with weepiness.
- Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, or uselessness.
- Poor motivation. Even simple tasks seem difficult.
- Poor concentration. It may be difficult to read, work, etc.
- Sleeping problems: difficulty in getting off to sleep; waking early and being unable to get back to sleep; sleeping too much.
- Lacking in energy. Always tired.
- Difficulty with affection, including going off sex.
- Poor appetite and weight loss. Sometimes the reverse happens with comfort eating and weight gain.
- Irritability, agitation, or restlessness.
- Symptoms often seem worse first thing each day.
- Physical symptoms such as headaches, palpitations, chest pains, and general aches.
- Recurrent thoughts of death. This is not usually a fear of death, more a preoccupation with death and dying. Some people get suicidal thoughts such as "... life's not worth living".
The causes of depression
Depression can be triggered by upsetting experiences such as a bereavement, relationship breakdown or unemployment. There is no one cause of depression and it has the potential to affect anyone. Below are some common causes of depression:
- Bereavement
- Loss of job
- Stress at work
- Life changes such as the birth of a child, redundancy or retirement
- Menopause
- Alcohol or substance misuse
- Separation or divorce
- Illness or disability
- Financial worries
- Bullying and harassment
- Relationship difficulties
The above list is not exhaustive. Many issues can contribute to depression.
How counselling may help
Counselling provides an opportunity in which a person can talk about, make sense of and find their way out of depression. Counselling can help you to understand the underlying cause of depression and discover ways of moving out of the depression. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) can help you to examine your thoughts, feeling and behaviours that contribute to feeling depressed and find ways of moving forward.
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