Can psychotherapy help with depression?
Can psychotherapy really help with depression? I agree that it takes more than just “sucking it up,” but I don’t agree that depression is a mental illness. I was diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder. I suffered from so much anxiety that I would often not leave my room or answer the phone for days. But I think nowadays we misunderstand it and try to “cure” this problem by treating symptomatic reactions. As Don Tolman says, “If you want to find out about sickness and death, study sickness and death, but if you want to learn about health and…

Can psychotherapy help with depression?
Can psychotherapy really help with depression?
I agree that it takes more than just “sucking it up,” but I don’t agree that depression is a mental illness.
I was diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder.
I suffered from so much anxiety that I would often not leave my room or answer the phone for days.
But I think nowadays we misunderstand it and try to “cure” this problem by treating symptomatic reactions.
As Don Tolman says
“If you want to find out about illness and death, then study illness and death, but if you are interested in health and well-being, then study health and well-being.”
In other words, what we focus on grows. We must constantly pay attention to our focus.
What changed my life was when I realized that I wasn't depressed, but that I was depressed. It takes a lot of effort to be depressed.
It does, and anyone who has DONE depression knows that fleeting moments of joy must quickly be replaced with negativity to maintain the illusion of depression.
The meanings I attributed to my life circumstances made me feel depressed. This feeling of depression left me inactive.
This inaction created more of the same circumstances in my life and reinforced the original meaning I created. It was a viscous cycle. Medicine will not break this cycle, but will poison and numb our bodies to the symptomatic reactions and not allow us to look at our circumstances objectively and move forward.
So for anyone who ARE depressed, I have a question: 'Beyond that, what ARE you that is so much more?'
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