Depression
Depression commonly manifests physically, through stomach pains, headaches, disrupted or excessive sleep, and motor control difficulty. While the causes of depression are unknown, a predisposition for it runs in families and it can be triggered by trauma and adverse life circumstances. Depression is diagnosed more frequently in women and tends to display differently in women than in men.
People tend to suffer higher rates of depression after giving birth and in late fall. Depression and anxiety often exacerbate each other and people with depression commonly have difficulty concentrating on tasks and conversations. Some people abuse alcohol and drugs or overeat as a way of coping, causing them to develop other medical problems. Depressed people are also at increased risk for self-harm.
Depression is a mental illness which is characterized by prolonged emotional symptoms including:
- Apathy
- Sadness
- Guilt
- Exhaustion
- Irritability
Diagnosing depression involves a psychiatric evaluation and physical tests to determine whether a person’s symptoms are actually being caused by a different disorder. A person must have been experiencing symptoms for at least two weeks to be diagnosed with depression. Every case is unique and requires individual attention, but there are a number of effective complementary ways of treating depression, including:
- Talk therapy
- Medication
- Adopting a healthier lifestyle
Anxiety
Anxiety can show up in ways that really get in your way! It can get in your way when you try to complete a task, or try something new, or when things don’t go as well as you would like. It can cause stressful rumination when you rehash a situation over and over. It can get you stuck in perfectionism and unrealistic expectations unable to get things done.
It can make it difficult to do things that may be common daily activities or it may result in behaviors that are intrusive to your schedule or inconvenient to yourself or others.
What Will We Do?
Therapy for anxiety involves noticing what type of anxiety is happening as there are different ways to address the brain depending on the type of anxiety you are experiencing.
Then, we explore where that anxiety is getting in your way. You may wrestle with how it behaves, as if it has a mind of its own- and doesn’t want to be tamed. We will identify how it interferes with your life, and the impact that it has.
You will learn tools to help you experience the present moment more fully, how to support your needs in a healthy way, and how to manage stressful situations. Time is spent in teaching about the brain’s functioning and the process of anxiety. Research-based skills are taught to help you learn how to better manage anxiety so that you can have a better understanding of it, and to help you to have more resources for when it rears up.