MindFully Well depression treatment is based on an evidence based understanding of how depression is really generated.  This therapy can help you to reduce your depression symptoms quickly and feel good again, and it can also help you to understand the underlying causes of your depression and to make positive changes to your life so that you can get lasting relief.

Do you –

• Wake up completely exhausted, with no energy or motivation, no matter how long you sleep?
• Wake up in the early hours of the morning with worries going round & round your head?
• Feel like your problems are all-encompassing and there is no possible solution?
• Get no pleasure from anything, even activities you used to enjoy the most?

Many people who are depressed feel that depression is one of the most difficult things that they have had to contend with in their life. They may feel as if they are stuck in a dark and lonely place.

Until recently although there were lots of known facts about depression, it was very poorly understood and there was no theory that could explain all the known facts. But fortunately that  has now changed, with up-to-date research in psychology and neuroscience, and this has led to the development of more effective solution focused approaches to depression treatment.

Many people who are depressed may seem deflated and flat, but in actual fact they have raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which means that they are in a constant emotional state. This emotional aroused makes it difficult to think rationally, which in turn makes it difficult to concentrate well and even make simple decisions. It also makes it difficult to think clearly and see ways of improving their situation. The main reason that depressed people are so emotionally aroused is that they spend a vast amount of time worrying about the future or beating themselves up about past events and catastrophising. All of this worrying and rumination saps an enormous amount of energy and makes people feel miserable. It is important that you are helped to deal with this worry and rumination and helped to relax, in order to break the cycle of depression.

Depression is not primarily a biological illness inherited through the genes. Nor is it the setbacks, crises or tragedies in your life that cause depression. Research has shown that it is the way that you respond to adverse events that puts you at risk of depression. It is your thinking style and perception of events that can cause you problems. For depression treatment to be effective and lasting, it is important that you are helped to understand the factors driving your depression, and how to change them.

The symptoms of depression include low mood, loss of interest or pleasure in usual activities, loss of appetite and energy, sleep disturbance, feeling agitated or lethargic, worthless or guilty, difficulty in thinking straight and having repeated thoughts about suicide. 

Antidepressant drugs may help some people because they lift levels of a ‘feel-good’ chemical in the brain, but unfortunately antidepressant drugs do nothing to change the underlying circumstances or thinking patterns that led to the depression.

Depression is always related to unmet essential emotional needs and is a sign that our lives are not working in some way. Therefore finding healthy ways to get your emotional needs met in balance is an important part of effective depression treatment.

Too many dreams

Research shows that depressed people dream much more than non-depressed people, distorting the balance between recuperative slow-wave sleep and energy-burning dream sleep. And with so much energy spent on all the excessive dreaming , they wake up exhausted and lacking in motivation.

We now know why this happens. Psychologist and co-founder of the human givens approach to therapy,  Joe Griffin carried out research over twelve years which showed that when we dream at night, we are discharging unexpressed emotional arousals from the previous day. For example, if earlier we were upset about something our spouse did or didn’t do, but kept it to ourselves, we would later dream that out, perhaps in the form of getting angry with someone else (dream content is never straightforward).  That would have the desired effect of processing those emotions so that we can start next day afresh. And then if we wake up and remember what our spouse did or didn’t do, we may get upset about it all over again, requiring more dream discharge that night, if we still don’t resolve it.

In the case of depressed people, because they spend so much time worrying and ruminating, they have far higher amounts of unexpressed emotions to be processed, which results in excessive dream sleep.

Solution Focused Depression Treatment

All therapists in the MindFully Well network can give you effective help to break the cycle of depression, alleviate your symptoms and feel good. We can help you to better understand your depression and what you can do to help yourself. We  can also help you to deal with the underlying issues, get your emotional needs met and so find lasting relief. Our therapy sessions are structured and we aim to help you in as few sessions as possible with improvements starting from the very first session. Sessions include helping you to deal with your negative thoughts and to learn to recognise & change unhelpful thinking patterns. We can help you to overcome whatever difficulties are preventing you from getting your emotional needs met and also to find ways to bring more meaning and purpose into your life. We can help you to take back control and to look forward with hope.

If the depression is due to post-traumatic stress, it is also necessary to stop the traumatic memory from continuing to interfere with life in the present. All therapists can use a simple but effective, non-invasive method of de-traumatisation to achieve this quickly. Read more about this here.

Our approach to helping you is solution focused and based on up-to-date research & a modern understanding of the mind-body connection. Our approach is future oriented and strengthens neuronal connections in the brain associated with feeling good because therapies which involve dwelling on and digging up the past, have been shown to make depression worse because they strengthen the neuronal connections involved in misery and negative thinking.

If you are looking for professional help to lift depression, contact any counsellor – psychotherapist in the MindFully Well network and  with our up-to-date depression treatment, we will be able to help you to  feel better, quickly & easily.

Therapist Locations:

ARKLOW   ASHBOURNE   BRAY   CORK   DUBLIN   GREYSTONES   KILKENNY  KILMACANOGUE  LEITRIM   LIMERICK   NEWTOWNARDS