Depression Therapy
Do You Wonder If You May Be Depressed?
Are you feeling unmotivated, hopeless and stuck?
Despite keeping up the appearance that you’re okay, do you feel like something is missing and that life lacks a sense of purpose and meaning?
Does your low mood cause you to retreat from life and spend more time alone?
You might be able to pinpoint a specific event that marked a change in your life, such as losing a loved one, becoming a parent, or experiencing a setback. Or perhaps you’re unaware of when the shift occurred.
Regardless of how it started, you might find yourself overwhelmed by sadness, anger, irritability, or shame, making it seem like you're stuck in a dark hole with no way out. Disruptions in your sleep, appetite, or concentration could intensify the feeling that something is wrong.
You Could Be Good At Hiding How You Feel From Others
Even though you manage to get up each day and act like nothing’s wrong, you might feel like you’re only going through the motions and notice that your performance at work or school has suffered lately. Inwardly, your sense of joy has drained from the things you once took pleasure in and you feel empty and helpless.
You could suffer from low self-esteem and low self-worth, hounded by critical self-talk telling you you’re not good enough. You may even feel guilty for feeling sad or unfulfilled, convincing yourself you have nothing to complain about. After all, so many others have it worse than you.
If you’re struggling to find ways to move forward and discover meaning in life, depression therapy offers solutions. With effective treatment, you can manage your depression symptoms, which will help restore a sense of hope and purpose.
Have any questions? Send me a message!
Depression Is Never A “One-Size-Fits-All” Disorder
If you’ve put off seeking depression treatment because you don’t want to burden others by asking for help, you’re not alone. Although in 2021, “an estimated 21.0 million adults in the United States had at least one major depressive episode,” less than 30 percent received treatment. [1]
Just as there is no single cause for depression, it can also show up differently for each of us. Forms of depression that can require therapy include:
Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), a more severe form of depression;
Persistent Depressive Disorder (PDD), thought less severe than PDD, can cause long-lasting feelings of sadness and emptiness;
Perinatal or postpartum depression, associated with the period before, during, or after pregnancy; and
High-functioning depression, having the ability to keep up with life’s demands while struggling internally.
Our Culture Reinforces A “Get Over It” Mentality
Unfortunately, many of us are embarrassed to ask for help, justifying our lack of action by telling ourselves that things in our lives aren’t bad enough to warrant the feelings we’re having. So often, we’ve been taught to suppress emotions and hide our feelings from others. In this way, depression immobilizes us, making it difficult to take steps forward.
Therapy allows you to validate how you’re feeling and explore depression’s root causes, such as genetics, childhood adversity, or unprocessed trauma. Once we better understand the “why”, we can customize a treatment plan that addresses your symptoms and gets you on the road to recovery.
Depression Therapy Can Help You Get Back To Yourself
What To Expect In Sessions
Our sessions will be collaborative and interactive. Clarifying what changes you hope to make and what actionable steps can be taken toward these goals will be what guides our work together. Your feedback is important—I encourage you to express your preferences and let me know when something isn’t working, and I’ll check in with you regularly about what you’re experiencing during sessions.
By embracing holistic methods in depression counseling, I will view you as a whole person, and not just your symptoms. In addition to identifying how current challenges impact your mood, we’ll also look at your lifestyle—including nutrition, exercise, sleep, and self-care—to address any unhealthy habits that may contribute to your outlook and how you feel. We’ll also explore the historical and sociocultural that have shaped the person you are today.
The Modalities I Utilize In Depression Treatment
I view each client as a unique individual and strive to use modalities that will benefit you most. Our treatment plan will depend on your current concerns, needs and goals. Taking an integrative approach, we may utilize Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), psychodynamic, existential, mindfulness, and relational therapies to help you gain insight into why you're experiencing depression while also encouraging behavioral change.
Some strategies we may incorporate are:
Exploring your values and strengths, so you can start making more intentional choices and find more meaning and purpose in life;
Identifying unhelpful thought patterns, such as "I'm worthless" or "Nothing will ever get better" and implementing strategies to develop more balanced self-talk and self-compassion;
Keeping thought records or mood logs to identify triggers for changes in mood; and
Shifting any unhealthy relationship patterns or lifestyle habits that contribute to depression.
Additionally, Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) can help process any traumatic or distressing memories that contribute to depression; and utilizing Somatic Experiencing will encourage you to identify emotions by paying closer attention to how feelings manifest as physical sensations in your body. We may also incorporate grounding skills to help you manage difficult emotions and be better able to stay in the present.
Embarking on therapy is the first step on your path back to feeling like yourself again. Once you can manage difficult feelings in healthier ways and have your needs met, your self-esteem and relationships will improve, as will your productivity and creativity. Through therapy, not only can you discover greater self-acceptance but you can also restore a sense of meaning to your life.
I commend you for acknowledging that something doesn’t feel right and recognizing that you could use some support. Even though what you’ve done to cope up until now may no longer be working, your resilience to keep going will help motivate you to make positive changes in different areas of your life.
In the short term, we will identify how you can improve your mood and feel better day-to-day with healthy lifestyle changes and better coping strategies. Our long-term focus will be to discover the underlying factors that contribute to depression, diving into your history to better understand how past experiences may be affecting how you feel in the present. We will explore its potential causes—whether environmental, social, biological, or prompted by a life transition—which will help us pinpoint the best depression treatment options for you.
Maybe You’re Not Sure If Depression Therapy Is Right For You…
I want to make sure the counselor I choose has experience helping clients with depression.
As a therapist with years of experience, many of the clients I've worked with began therapy when they were experiencing depression and felt stuck. I’m trained in a variety of different modalities that aid in improving your mood in the short term and making sustainable, long-term changes.
The treatment plan we develop can target whatever type of depression you may be experiencing, such as the stress associated with high achievement, postpartum, or clinical depression. With a better understanding of what contributes to depression combined with the right treatment, you can get unstuck and move forward in life.
[1] https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/major-depression
I’m concerned that depression counseling won’t help.
If you’ve sought out depression therapy before but didn’t experience the changes you were hoping for, it’s understandable to be concerned seeking out a new therapist won’t be helpful. However, each therapist is different and has their own style.
I regularly seek out feedback from new clients to gain an understanding of what previous experiences were like. Learning about what's worked for them and what hasn’t gives me the chance to make changes that improve their therapy experience and outcomes.
In addition to therapy, will I have to take medication for depression?
The choice whether or not to include medication in your depression treatment plan is entirely up to you. While some of my clients benefit from taking prescribed medications in the short or long term, others see improvement without anti-depressants being necessary.
While I can’t prescribe medication, we can discuss whether it would be helpful to meet with a doctor and explore other treatment options. I might also suggest you consider other natural forms of treatment, from exercise to meditation.
You Deserve To Feel Your Best
With support, you can rediscover the pleasure in things you’ve been missing. To find out more about online depression therapy with me, please call (310) 728-9729 or visit my contact page.
Depression Therapy
in Los Angeles
627 N Larchmont Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90004