Depressions are surprisingly straightforward to understand and in most cases to relieve

Depression is caused by worrying too much, leading to bad sleep and over dreaming. Recovery begins by worrying less by whatever means and then problem solving and action.

Are you severely depressed or know someone who is?

• Those who are really depressed will be profoundly lacking in energy, motivation and hope.
• They will be aware of bad sleeping and probably that they are dreaming a lot, that they are introspecting and ruminating too much and finding that they are blaming themselves for their problems.
• They will be aware of collapsing self esteem and self confidence and against their better judgement will be isolating themselves from friends and society and often failing to do the basic tasks for living adequately.

People sink into a negative hopeless state when their innate physical or emotional needs are not being met and, instead of dealing with this situation, they begin to worry about it. They therefore begin to misuse their imagination.

All depressed people worry.
This increases the amount of dreaming they do, upsetting the balance between slow-wave, recuperative sleep and dream sleep. Consequently they start to develop an imbalance between energy burning dream sleep and refreshing slow-wave sleep. Soon they start to wake up feeling tired and unmotivated. This makes them worry even more as they feel that "something is wrong with me".

All strong emotions focus and lock attention and attention stays focused on all the bad things that seem to be happening, whether real or illusory. Every little thing we worry about and do not resolve that day is translated into a bad dream the next night. All these worries have to be worked through in extended and intense periods of dream activity in REM sleep as the brain attempts to rebalance arousal levels. This upsets the relationship between slow wave sleep and REM sleep.

Three steps to get out of a depression.

1. Fire fighting – to do whatever it takes to reduce rumination and arousal quickly so sleep improves. In most cases an improvement in energy and motivation can be noticed within a week or even less.
2. With arousal reducing, then begin to take small steps to get those missing emotional needs better met.
3. And finally as you begin on this practical problem solving process, tackle the limitations and barriers that arise – whether they be rigid and negative black and white thinking styles or unhelpful emotional pattern matching.

The key is that sleep improves and with that, motivation, control and hope ... and from that a life can arise where essential needs are being much better met.

There is still a quite breathtaking level of ignorance about what actually is the cause of this new epidemic. It follows from this that the treatments offered and self help advice available, though often sensible as far as they go, often falls short of what is really needed.

It need not be like this. There is a credible and plausible explanation of what causes the brain to manufacture depressive feelings and even more important, there is a clear route back to emotional health.

The half truths told in support of medication by the drug companies and then peddled ignorantly by many GPs is one of the great scandals of our time.

Read of these two contrasting websites

Read what GPs think of anti-depressants

The Human Givens approach

The understanding and treatment of depression is perhaps the great practical contribution of the Human Givens approach to the treatment of mental illness.

Human Givens is UK based and integrates best counselling practice with the latest scientific understandings. Read about it here.

The main Human Given’s insights and recommended treatments are the subject of this part of the website.

I have worked with these insights for over six years now.
They more than make sense - they are a route out of serious depression.
I know this by help given to scores of very depressed clients. All have got their lives back with joy, purpose and motivation returning.

So if you are suffering or know someone who is .... well call me or drop me an email.

Go to Symptoms
Go to Treatment
Go to Case Studies

Go to Anxiety and Depression
Go to Depression Self Help
Return to Counselling

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