Therapy for Depression: CBT and EMDR online
Everyone recognizes times when you are not comfortable in your own skin, you are tired and suffer from gloomy feelings. It's hard to do normal things. The feeling of a dip predominates. Often these symptoms are short-lived. With depression, we no longer speak of a dip, but these symptoms persist and become heavier. Therapy is then a wise choice to get rid of these complaints.
Depression is a constantly present gloomy mood that lasts longer than two weeks and does not disappear on its own. Have you been gloomy for a few weeks and don't feel like anything anymore? Then you may have depression. Depression has multiple forms, examples are: bipolar depression, postnatal depression and chronic depression.
Symptoms depression
In general, we speak of depression if you suffer from the following symptoms daily, for more than 2 weeks: At least 1 of the following core symptoms:
- a gloomy mood;
- a markedly reduced interest or pleasure in (almost) all activities.
Additional symptoms:
- A decreased appetite and weight loss, or an increased appetite with weight gain;
- Insomnia, poor sleep or too much sleep;
- Feeling agitated and restless or inhibited;
- Fatigue and loss of energy;
- Feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt;
- Having difficulty concentrating, thinking and making decisions;
- Recurring thoughts of death or suicide.
Depressive symptoms
Depression is also called depressive disorder. Many more people do not have 'full' depression, but they do have depressive symptoms that can lead to depression. That means they have some of the above symptoms.
Causes depression
The causes of a depression are very diverse. In many cases, vulnerability plays a role. Major events can also cause depression. Depression causes can be:
- Genetic factors: hereditary predisposition.
- Social and environmental factors: the loss of a loved one or the loss of social support.
- Cognitive cause: a negative experience in childhood can cause you to engage the negativity on yourself. This detaches feelings from, for example, worthlessness.
- Hormonal disruption: chemical disruption in the brain that makes you more vulnerable to depression.
What can you do yourself?
- Don't keep walking around with your problem. Depression is often treatable.
- Acknowledge your gloomy feelings and realize that your depression doesn't just go away. However, you can influence your mood.
- Talk to your environment about your feelings.
- Ensure regularity: get up on time, eat three times a day and go to bed on time.
- Go cycling or hiking every day. Exercise helps against depressive feelings and also makes you 'healthy tired', so that you sleep better.
- Try to visit people, even if you don't really feel like it. However, do not look up situations where enjoyment is a 'must' (such as a party). It'll only make you more gloomy.
- Find out if you can find causes for your gloom, such as a profound change or great loss in your life. Allow yourself to be sad about this.
- If you are ashamed of your depression, remember that depression is very common. One in five women and one in ten men experience depression at some point in their lives.
Treatment of depression
Can't you break the negative spiral yourself? Seek help in time. As a cognitive behavioral therapist, we have gained the necessary experience in treating various forms of depression. In addition, treatment through online cognitive behavioral therapy is a proven effective form of therapy that we regularly apply. However, as an EMDR therapist, we have also started to make more use of EMDR online in the treatment of depression, where experiencing major life events are related to the onset of a depressive disorder.
- Online Cognitive Behavioural Therapy:
Online Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is a short-term form of treatment (10 to 15 sessions). The treatment has proved effective in scientific research for various psychological complaints, including depressive, gloomy thoughts. Online cognitive behavioral therapy is a structured form of therapy that focuses on the present and the future. During the therapy, the therapist and client investigate in close cooperation whether his or her negative thinking is correct. The emphasis is on changing the way of thinking and investigating which more appropriate way of thinking is appropriate. Through specific cognitive exercises, and through homework, the client comes to new thoughts and changes his or her behavior from negative to positive. However, cognitive behavioral therapy requires the necessary motivation and commitment to lead to a good result.
- EMDR online:
In addition to cognitive behavioral therapy, there is increasing evidence for applying EMDR in the treatment of depression, including EMDR online. EMDR is short for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It is a proven effective and fully-fledged short-term treatment method to process the consequences of traumatic events by weakening them, reducing or eliminating the symptoms. Although EMDR is originally used in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, it can also be used in case of mood disorders in which traumatic events have played a role. Together with the client, we investigate which traumatic events in the past led to the depression. EMDR online has the advantage of a rapid symptom reduction and fewer sessions are needed.
Benefits of online therapy
As an online psychologist and therapist, we are much more flexible than when we let clients come to us in a clinic. With online therapy you as a client do not lose time traveling, you do not have to wait, you can get started right away, from your own familiar environment, when it suits you.
Read more about the benefits of online therapy on our website. Don't wait any longer. Visit our website www.nostraforza.com. Via the contact form you can request a free and completely free introductory meeting. In this conversation we would like to show you who we are, how online cognitive behavioural therapy and/or online EMDR works and how we can help you.