Depression therapists in Chamonix, France FR

If you are feeling low, or depressed I can help you by integrating behavioural, cognitive and interpersonal approaches with relaxation, visualisation and guided imagery techniques. Contact me for a free consultation to feel more motivated, with a clear plan how to begin to solve your problems. Contrary to common belief, depression is not primarily a biological illness, inherited through the genes. Nor is it the setbacks, crises or tragedies in our lives that cause depression. It is our response to adverse events that determines whether we get depressed or not. Research shows that people most likely to suffer depression are those who react to adversity by taking it personally, seeing all areas of their lives as blighted by it, and the misery as going on forever. Depression is always a second and unnecessary problem, and just makes problematic circumstances worse. This is good to know because it means that, instead of feeling helpless or hopeless, people can learn to take back control over their lives. They may not be able to change certain circumstances but they always have options about how they react to them. The symptoms of depression include low mood, loss of interest or pleasure in usual activities, loss of appetite and energy, sleep disturbance, feeling agitated or lethargic, worthless or guilty, difficulty in thinking straight and having repeated thoughts about suicide. Antidepressant drugs may help some people because they lift levels of a ‘feel-good’ chemical in the brain; unfortunately, they do nothing to change the underlying circumstances or thinking patterns that led to the depression. Depression is always related to unmet essential emotional needs and that is why the human givens approach, which focuses on helping people in distress find healthy ways to meet their emotional needs, is so successful. Depressed people may seem deflated and flat but, in actual fact, they have raised levels of a stress hormone called cortisol, which means that they are in a state of constant high emotional arousal. When our emotions are aroused we can’t think rationally, so this is why people deep in the grip of depression can’t concentrate well or even make simple decisions. Learning simple relaxation techniques to calm themselves down will start reducing those cortisol levels. The main reason that depressed people are so emotionally aroused is that they spend a vast amount of time worrying about the future or beating themselves up about past events. Perhaps they still feel guilty about something that happened recently – or years ago; perhaps they are frightening themselves with dire ‘what if?’ scenarios (likely or unlikely), in which loved ones encounter dangers or they themselves lose their jobs or their homes; perhaps they feel beaten down by chronic pain or anger (“Why did this have to happen to me?” “How could he have been so cruel?”); or maybe they experience a combination. They also have a huge tendency towards negative thinking – “I’ll never be good enough”; “I’ll never cope”; “nothing ever goes right”; “the pain will only get worse”. All this kind of negative imagining and thinking saps an enormous amount of energy – and makes people utterly miserable. Far from feeling more refreshed after a night’s sleep, most people with depression wake up next day still exhausted and feeling totally unmotivated. It is hard for them to get out of bed and do anything at all. We now know why this happens. Psychologist and co-founder of the human givens approach Joe Griffin carried out research over many years which showed that, when we dream at night, we are discharging unexpressed emotional arousals from the previous day. If earlier we were upset about something our spouse did or didn’t do, but kept it to ourselves, we would later dream that out, perhaps in the form of getting angry with someone else (dream content is never straightforward); that would have the desired effect of lowering our levels of emotional arousal, so that we can start next day afresh, even though we are unlikely to remember we had the dream. (If we did express our feelings with our spouse at the time, we wouldn’t need to dream about it. And, of course, if we wake up and remember what our spouse did or didn’t do, we may get emotionally aroused about it all over again, requiring more dream discharge that night, if we still don’t resolve it.)  

All of our Clinical Psychologists at ComposurePsychology are very experienced in helping people understand, manage and overcome low mood, overwhelm, a sense of being stuck and depression. We draw from evidence based therapies including; CBT, ACT, CFT, SFT, DBT, EMDR, systemic, narrative, psychodynamic and others.  

I support people that are experiencing low mood, lack of motivation, or a sense of disconnection from life. Using neuroscience-based therapy along with traditional methods we work together to understand the patterns that may be keeping you stuck and develop practical ways to shift them. My approach is compassionate and collaborative, helping you to restore balance, resilience, and reconnect with a sense of purpose.  

Often we experience depression due to experiences of the past interfering in our enjoyment of the present and even our thoughts about the future. By examining ourselves and our interactions in therapy can we work through the root causes of any depressive feelings and alleviate its effect on us. Depression does not have to be a natural reaction to lifes struggles but can instead be an indication that things are not right and that they need to be attended too  

Social challenges can arise at any age and different stages of importance. In presence of social skills challenges, it may be necessary to seek the help of a professional to obtain tips, tricks, and tools.