Depression therapists in Crumlin, Wales Wales, United Kingdom GB
Depression
Miranda Seymour-Smith
Registered Psychotherapist, UKCP registered psychoanalytic psychotherapist
I specialise in working effectively to relieve depressive symptoms
15 Years Experience
Depression
Kyle Davies
Psychologist, BSc MPhil CPsychol AFBPsS
In modern society, the word depression is used to describe experiences ranging from low mood and sadness to a complete inability to function. Depression can manifest as extreme fatigue, cognitive dysfunction and suicidal thoughts.
Statistics tell us that one in six to a quarter of us will suffer from mild to severe depression at some point in our lives. Mild to severe depression can last from a few days to many years. Often there are no clear-cut manifestations of the depression that outsiders can observe, and this compounds the problem because people don’t understand what you are experiencing.
No two people’s experience of depression is exactly the same, and it can be very difficult to understand why the symptoms are even present much less what to do about it. Having experienced depression firsthand, I know what the experience is like and how debilitating it can be. I have now successfully treated sufferers of depression for over 20 years and have drawn heavily on my personal experience and the lessons it taught me.
Depression symptoms can manifest themselves in many different ways and can also increase gradually over time making them harder to detect in the early stages. The symptoms can be wide-ranging and the symptoms can appear to be constant and relentless. Your symptom experiences may well include:
low mood
hopelessness
lack of motivation
confusion and a sense of being lost or stuck
loss of appetite, weight loss, or weight gain
cognitive dysfunction – ‘brain fog’, inability to concentrate and memory loss
sleep disturbance
loss of pleasure and interest in life
agitation
fatigue and lack of energy
suicidal thoughts
weakness
aches and pains
Loss of libido
I’d like to be very clear, we often think that when we experience symptoms there is something wrong with our brain. While this can be the case, a more useful way of looking at symptoms for the condition of depression, is that your body is seeking to get your attention, to let you know that something is not quite right. You are NOT broken, your body is working perfectly normally, it is simply alerting you to the fact that you’ve become disconnected from YOU and something needs to change. Opening up to a new understanding and making that change is well within your own capability.
25 Years Experience
Depression
Gui Mansilla
Registered Psychotherapist, Lawyer (Arg) M.Div (USA) Reg. Psychotherapist (CA) Coach (Ca)
Embark on a transformative journey to break free from the grips of depression with my client-centred approach that acknowledges both the chemical and behavioural dimensions of this relentless mental health challenge. In my over two decades of experience, encompassing more than 17,000 hours of direct client contact, I have dedicated myself to unravelling the complexities of depression.
I firmly believe that the roots of depression often lie in the soil of childhood neglect and trauma, making it imperative to identify its origins for effective healing. Guiding my clients to develop insight is just the beginning; we then traverse the path of acquiring new skills to address the unmet needs at the core of their struggle.
As clients learn to meet these needs, the shackles of depression gradually loosen, and the joy of living is rekindled. I infuse the therapeutic process with friendliness and entertainment, fostering an environment that promotes faster and more positive results.
If this resonates with you, I extend an invitation to a consultation. It would be an honour to explore the possibility of collaborating on your personal journey of healing and growth. Together, let's navigate the terrain of depression and rediscover the vibrant life that awaits beyond its shadow.
19 Years Experience
Depression
Claudia Behnke
Registered Psychotherapist, Ma (Psych), PGDip Psychosynthesis Psychology, Psychotherapeutic Counsellor, UKCP accredited
I offer a compassionate space to explore the complexities of this emotional state. Using a Psychosynthesis approach, we examine the emotional, intellectual, physical, and spiritual dimensions that underlie depressive symptoms. This holistic viewpoint allows for a nuanced understanding of depression, including how it may interact with other facets of your life such as relationships or work. The goal of our sessions will be to help you gain deeper self-insight and practical coping skills, allowing you to navigate through life's ups and downs with greater emotional resilience. In this way, our work together aims to bring about a meaningful shift towards a more balanced state of well-being.
6 Years Experience
Depression
Sara Aicart-Pendlebury
Art Therapist, Human Givens Practitioner (HG.Dip.P), Member of Human Givens Institute, IFS therapist Levels 1&2, Narm Practitioner
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.)
15 Years Experience