Sadness is normal. All emotions serve some purpose. But sometimes, sadness becomes overwhelming, and then the sadness turns into depression. You may find that what used to give pleasure, doesn’t. And, often, sleep and eating patterns start to change, with too much or too little of either resulting in additional problems. Sometimes depression can look like anger, particularity in kids or men. But what’s probably most important, is that depression CAN be treated. Here are three proven ways to combat and treat depression.

 3 Proven Ways to Manage and Treat Depression

1) An Adult with Depression

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT can be an effective way to treat depression. Actually it’s one of the most researched treatments out there for depression.

CBT teaches us how our thoughts, feelings and behaviors all affect each other, and how you can use the relationship between them, to your advantage! It proves how changing one automatically can affect the other. In particular, it can help you to manage sadness.

Most of us talk to ourselves all day long. That’s normal.  Therefore, what we say — especially to ourselves — can really go along way towards managing and treating depression.

2) A Child with Depression

I don’t think there’s anything more difficult than when our child is hurting. There’s often a life event that created a big stressor for kids with depression.  A big stressor is something that was confusing, overwhelming and often life altering for them.  We in the business refer to this as “trauma”.

An evidenced based treatment for kids is Trauma Focused-Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or TF-CBT.

TF-CBT can be really effective in helping a child manage and treat depression.  TF-CBT helps the child work through the stressor. But probably most noteworthy, it helps the child turn to and connect to their parents. This treatment can help kids re-connect in a way that’s amazing. Click Here for a list of certified clinicians in Missouri. And for more info on TF-CBT and how it works Click Here.

3) A Partner with Depression

If you or your partner are depressed, things can feel bad for both of you. Therefore, if both of you are willing, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy might be your best option.

Emotionally Focused Therapy, or EFT, is arguably the most evidence based treatment out there for couples.  When couples learn how to change the way they communicate, it can create emotional safety. That’s what EFT helps couples do. It helps couples reduce the negative fights and increase positive connection.

EFT also helps couples manage hard feelings —  with their partner, working towards the goal that the couple creates a secure alliance, a strong base. And, well that can change EVERYTHING!

You Don’t Have To Be Alone

There are proven ways to treat depression. Here’s a short and interesting video about depression. It has a lot of good information that might help. while also offering effective ways to treat it. It’s called “I had a black dog, his name was depression”, Here’s the link again.

Good Help is Available.

Asking for help can be hard.  Sometimes people can feel like it’s a sign of weakness. But what I find is that it takes a lot of courage to ask for what we need.  And often doing courageous things helps us to do more courageous things.

Depression affects not only on the people experiencing it, but the people that love them. And it creates so many problems for relationships.

Finally, while treating depression can be confusing, after all there is no one size fits all for depression, there is help out there.  Most important, is that there is Good help.

A little about Cindy Badamo, MSW, LCSW

As a Licensed Clinical Therapist, my work has a focus on relationships and how to make them better. My office is at the edge of Kirkwood, in Sunset Hills.

When we feel connected to the most important people in our lives, we really are the happiest. And most importantly, you can change your relationships. There are proven ways to create, nurture and repair the relationships that matter most. For more info on the science behind my work, click here.

I offer free 15 minute phone consultations when I’m accepting new clients. Also, you can follow me on Facebook for relationship humor, science and advice. Finally, please share this post if you found this post helpful!

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