For those with depression mixed with loneliness, great comfort can be found with animal companions and learning new social skills. Often times people are isolated because they just don’t know how to follow the threads of our conversation, get into other peoples lives and feel what they’re feeling. I teach patients how to follow threads of a conversation and feel that connection with other people.
Interpersonal skills like this lay the groundwork for forming new and rewarding friendships.
Sometimes the challenge is finding a positive self image.
Modern society is full of so many self-limiting beliefs, such as those that are promoted on social media. We are much more than just our appearances. If we look more deeply into the reality of our wonderful selves, we can appreciate how we don’t need other people‘s approval. We just need to accept ourselves.
At other times, people are stressed out because they are distracted from the present moment. Learning meditation and mindfulness can heal some of these problems.
Sometimes people have learned these and many other skills, but they are still tied down by symptoms of depression. They feel sad with low energy, low motivation and obsessions about problems. For some of these people, the addition of a medication can be life-changing. Later, copying skills as outlined above can gradually replace the medicine. Reasons for this are explained in this website, in the section about the brain science.
So with counseling and education, a foundation is laid for people to take charge of their life and start moving forward in the direction of their dreams. As you can see, this is different from ``just counseling`` or ``just getting medication.``