There are many different types of depression, and I am assuming that if you are looking at this page you have been diagnosed with depression and are looking for help.

Whether you suffer from bi-polar (manic) depression, post-natal depression, or clinical depression - major, minor or chronic, endogenous (spontaneous) or reactive - there are ways in which you can be helped.

Depression manifests itself in different ways for different people. It can affect your physiology, causing problems such as lethargy, sadness, misery, sleep disturbances, loss of appetite, lack of interest and lack of enjoyment/pleasure. Depression can affect your thought patterns and beliefs, preventing you from thinking clearly or making decisions, making it difficult to concentrate, and lowering your self-esteem. Depression is often accompanied by anxiety.

Just as depression manifests itself in different ways from one individual to another, there is no single cause of depression. There can be many underlying medical and psychological disorders that contribute to depression. The environment you are in will affect how you feel, just as the experiences that you have had in the past affect how you think and feel now. Evidence strongly suggests that the origins of depression are more psychological than biological; that it is more related to the way in which people think about and respond to their experiences.

When psychotherapy is used to treat depression, chemical imbalances in levels of serotonin, noradrenaline and dopamine usually return to normal, thereby removing the need to take further medication. This suggests that the body's physical manifestations of depression are as a result of the psychological depression and NOT the other way around.

Anti-depressant drugs in general treat the symptom, not the cause. This does not mean that they are not successful, and essential, for some people (especially those with bi-polar depression). These drugs do have a definite place and it is essential that you take your doctors advice with regards to their relevance to your experience of depression.

However in many cases, anti-depressants serve simply to suppress the feelings of despair or worthlessness, etc. Psychotherapy is needed to treat the cause. The types of therapy that have been shown to work best are cognitive (relating to how your mind maps the world), behavioural (relating to how you act) and interpersonal.

Hypnosis itself is a state of relaxation and will give your mind and body a break from the depression, whilst at the same time providing opportunity to re-programme your belief system quickly.

In order to treat depression successfully one must examine your basic belief system - how you see the world, how you talk to yourself, how you think about yourself. When people feel that they have little or no control over their environment they are more prone to depression, and feelings of helplessness can be over-generalised over context.

Typically a depressed person is prone to blame themself for anything and everything, to feel that what went wrong was because of them (the person), not because of what they did (the action). There is a tendency to feel that "it will always be this way", and "nothing makes any difference". There is an inability to create happy images, and a propensity for creating great big, dull, negative visions of the past, present and future. Depressed people tend to move slowly, breathe shallowly and have a slouched posture.

Neuro Linguistic Programming is an invaluable tool in finding out how your mind works, and taking control of your thought patterns and changing them. You can be shown how to feel good in yourself, to feel in control, to make big, bright, colourful pictures of the future that make you smile. You can learn new strategies for coping with day to day life, so that no matter what you are faced with you remain in control and "look on the bright side of life".

The number of sessions required differs from person to person. It will depend on:

• the type of depression you have


• how long you have had depression


• your unique belief system


• your current social/work/family environment

Typically though this type of therapy is relatively brief, taking on average about 6 sessions at weekly intervals.

The most important thing to remember is that everyone has the ability to think and to feel differently, and to be able to heal themselves with a little help from a competent therapist. Hypnotherapy and NLP are invaluable in the treatment of depression.

Roseanna has practiced as a hypnotherapist and analyst since 1989, and has a great deal of experience in assisting people in coping with and overcoming depression.

You can contact her on 670303 for a confidential discussion of your problem.

Please note that even when calling during office hours you may still be connected to an answerphone as Roseanna may already be in consultation with a client. Please do leave a message and your call will be returned as soon as possible. Alternatively, you can e-mail Roseanna here.