Depression doesn’t discriminate. A depressed mood is something most of us will experience at some point in our lives. We all feel low sometimes, often in response to different stressors. If you’ve been feeling a bit numb or disconnected, and a low mood has clouded your sense of self, purpose and joy in life, it’s important to find a different way forward. Despite how depression makes you feel, you’re not alone. Over one million people in Australia are experiencing depression right now. One in seven Australians will have a depressive episode at least once in their lifetime. According to clinical psychologist Ellen Hendriksen, up to 50% of people experiencing depression may also be managing symptoms of anxiety. Yet many people feel apprehensive talking about depression - especially if there’s no particular reason for them to be feeling depressed.
Depression has been linked to many underlying factors, often in combination with one another. Depression sometimes runs in families (genetic predisposition), or may develop from a chemical imbalance of the brain’s neurotransmitters that regulate our mood. Personality traits such as worrying and perfectionism also increase the risk of depression. Situational depression is often linked to external events such as being diagnosed with an illness, a relationship breakup, or work stress. Perinatal depression occurs during pregnancy and after having a child, and seasonal affective disorder may set in during the colder months. Yet feeling depressed for no reason is just as common, and often harder to talk about.
Life might look fine on the surface - great job, relationships, family life - but depression can still cloud our view, and darken our mood. Many people experiencing this type of depression become harshly self-critical, incorrectly assuming they are flawed, abnormal or damaged in some way because everything should be fine, but something just doesn’t seem right. It can feel hard to share what you’re going through with others, as often the response is “What have you got to be depressed about?” This may lead to feelings of guilt, embarrassment or shame, and isolation, which only intensifies the depressive episode.
A depressed mood can descend like a dark cloud, affecting the way you think, feel and behave. If it lasts a while, a depressive episode can also have invasive impacts on your personal and professional life. Depression can wreak havoc with your sense of self, your motivation, and your relationships with others. Sometimes depression feels heavy and bleak - like life has lost its joy and meaning, even when there’s no particular reason for you to be feeling that way. If you’ve been feeling down, stressed, emotionally numb or overwhelmed for more than a couple of weeks, you may be experiencing depression.
Feelings of sadness and low mood are quite common throughout the lifespan, and usually resolve with time. Untreated depression is different - it doesn’t go away. A depressive episode can feel relentless and incredibly hard to live with. It may last for weeks or months, sometimes years, and have unwanted long-term impacts on your physical, emotional and mental wellbeing.
Depression is common, and it is treatable. Symptoms may vary from person to person, but all types of depression - from mild to severe - can be effectively treated with mood management strategies. Depression is particularly responsive to counselling treatment. Research shows that counselling combined with physical exercise, healthy eating, and sleeping well can dramatically improve wellbeing and reduce the symptoms of depression. Counselling targets the underlying causes of depression. You’ll learn strategies to help regulate your mood, and ways to manage stress effectively. An experienced therapist can help you to figure out how to get your mind to work for you, not against you. Effective counselling is also the key to long-term recovery and the prevention of relapse. Decades of clinical research suggest that for relief from depression, counselling is a more effective treatment than taking medication. Those same studies also report that a course of therapy is just as effective as medication combined with counselling. Evidence-based interventions used to treat depression include Mindfulness-Based Therapy, Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, Interpersonal Therapy, and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy.
Even if you feel unsure that what you’re experiencing is depression, speaking to a qualified counsellor about your concerns can clarify what’s happening, give you some effective tools to manage your mood, and help you to expand your sense of purpose, joy and connectedness to life again. For appointments or enquiries, please call 1300 735 030 or leave us an email via our contact page.
Yes. Seeing a counsellor can help individuals learn strategies to process and manage negative thoughts and experiences more effectively. In a safe and compassionate space, a therapist can support individuals in feeling comfortable sharing their inner thoughts and feelings without worry of judgment. This environment can foster positive personal growth, improvements in mood, and regaining interest and pleasure in everyday activities.
According to the American Psychiatric Association, depression is extremely treatable, with 80-90% of people eventually responding well to their treatment, which may include counselling alone or a combination of counselling and medication. There is strong evidence that counselling is at least as effective as medication in treating depression, and counselling tends to be a more effective long term strategy, because it provides you with mental tools to deploy if your depression symptoms ever return. One of counselling’s most important strengths is that it helps the client develop resilience in the face of adversity or suffering, enabling you to bounce back quicker.
Depression is a broad term, and there are many factors that will impact the direction your counsellor chooses to take in your session. Most importantly, a good, experienced practitioner will be adept at attuning the session to your needs and allowing you to maintain a sense of control over your own treatment. Depression counselling is a bit of a journey, but will involve identifying triggers and sources in your life and developing the tools to essentially re-train your brain to cope with those issues better.
Treatments that have a proven track record in the context of depression include, but are not limited to:
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) CBT is an extremely effective method for altering the beliefs, ideas and behaviours that might be holding you back or triggering your depression. It focuses particularly on addressing and fixing the types of thought distortions that might lead you to believe or feel negative things, whether about yourself or about life in general.
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) Encourages people to embrace their thoughts and accept them rather than struggling to resist them. It involves accepting the bad with the good, and while it can seem strange to start with it helps to build that ever-important resilience.
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) DBT is actually a form, or ‘offshoot’, of CBT, which involves developing healthy ways to cope with and regulate intense emotions, as well as improving interpersonal relationships.
Schematherapy Schematherapy involves identifying your ‘schemas’, which are essentially your ways of viewing the world. Another way to think of a schema is as a lens through which you view yourself, your life or events, that tints or affects how you see things. By identifying schemas, you can understand more about yourself and recognise how your perspective on certain issues may be contributing to your depression.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) EMDR is an interactive therapy often used to treat trauma. It involves reliving triggering experiences in small doses while your counsellor directs your eye movements. It works to de-sensitise you to the triggering experience until you can learn to live with the memory and not be triggered by it. Mindfulness Mindfulness is similar to meditation, although it lacks spiritual connotations and is used for practical purposes.
When practicing mindfulness, you work to focus on your awareness of the present moment, often through a combination of breathing practices and vocal guidance. It is extremely powerful in reducing stress and inducing a feeling of calm, which can help to put the rest of life into perspective. 1. Karyotaki, E. (2016) Combining pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy or monotherapy for major depression? A meta-analysis on the long-term effects. Journal of Affective Disorders.
Counselling for depression targets breaking the cycle of negative thinking in an attempt to re-regulate cognitive processing. A therapist will work with an individual to identify the patterns and environmental factors contributing to feelings of hopelessness and unhappiness and apply therapeutic techniques that change/challenge these. Different to treatments for anxiety or other psychological disorders, depression counselling works on rebuilding a foundation of esteem and positivity, while anxiety treatments focus more on physical symptoms (like panic) and learning strategies to manage physiological responses to stimuli.
Counselling can be highly effective in reducing symptoms of depression, leading to feelings of greater life satisfaction and general well-being. Psychological treatment plays a crucial role in treating depression in individuals, with substantial scientific evidence in support of therapeutic interventions. However, counselling success rates are contingent on many factors, such as a person’s commitment to therapy and willingness to adopt lifestyle changes. Generally, individuals will notice positive outcomes in their first 10-20 sessions with a counsellor, though long-term counselling may be required in more complex cases.
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