Depressed people lack Hope – do you?
A vital early step in my depression recovery therapy is to restore some hope – to show that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Restoring Hope
For humans, there has to be hope. We have to hope that there will be an expected consequence in line with what we believe and trust.
An invitation for a friend to come round carries the expectation that the invitation will be received, understood and acted on or replied to – whether it is to say yes or no.
A visit to the supermarket has within it the expectation that the items you wish to buy will be there and that you can take them away with you after having paid for them.
Hope has expectation and trust closely connected to it.
You could say that hope is essential for our capacity to function – and to have expectations and trust is part of this. And if one avenue seems to be without hope, that we can find another.
For, we humans are resourceful and flexible and can adjust to situations where hope is absent to find something else.
BUT, what if there is no hope?
Then, wherever you looked you saw just blackness and felt powerless. And what if you then realised that you had no real idea why you were feeling so exhausted and lost.
In fact. all of your efforts had just made the situation worse? Your head just going round and round and you became more and more exhausted.
And what if you felt that there was no escape? Why then of course, these feelings of hopelessness would be spreading out to all aspects of your life – your work, your relationships, your daily life.
Everything?
Is depression an absence of hope that feeds exhaustion?
Certainly in my many years in helping my clients recover from their depression, all lacked hope.
And what I find is resignation, defeat and hopelessness. Do read what some of them say, in describing their depression.
And this is why I know that what is needed, beginning in that first session is the seed of hope.
Do you lack hope and do you need some hope restored right now?
If you have tried so hard for so long and spoken to so many people and discovered that nothing seems to work – well that will destroy any hope. And that is why I lay down a thread really early on – to allow it to lead from despair and hopelessness to confidence born out of direct experience.
Can you see that to restore hope is an essential requirement for depression recovery?
That there is a clear light shining at the end of the tunnel.
Listen to this
Lifting Depression
Depression Therapy Online
How it Works
What to Expect
What is Depression
Escaping the NHS
Audio Therapy for Depression
Depression Epidemic
Antidepressants?
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Why an Epidemic?
Depression Cases that will speak to you
When depression creeps up quietly
Newly retired and having to make big changes
Is the memory of that first terrible depression still traumatising you?
Sometimes, getting over depression is like peeling away the layers of an onion
Depression can sometimes exist for a long time, low-level and chronic
Matthew describes his depression
How I build hope.
It is for my clients to understand what is causing their depression and from that to have the appreciation that shock/horror it is all fairly simple and straightforward.
It is hard for to me to overstate the importance of this – that depression is not a mystery and neither is a very complicated.
And you certainly don’t need a postgraduate degree in psychiatry to understand it.
That is one reason why this is the first part of all my work with depressed clients.
Of course, if you are lost in depression, you cannot easily be fooled. You have good reason and bitter experience to support your hopelessness – that whatever you try does not work and whoever you ask for help and understanding fails so abysmally.
But hope is there waiting. All that is needed is to look in the right place. To find a simple explanation of depression that will make complete sense of why you are feeling as you do, and then guidance with the first steps that can be taken right away. And if you do find that, then guess what? Hope stirs.
You are not going mad, there is a credible explanation of why you’re feeling as you are and there is a route out for you. If you really understand why this is so, then lo and behold you should find that hope will return – and this will be genuine, rooted and real.
What you can do Now
Discover if you are depressed
Check out my Overcome Depression Audio Programme
Buy it or we will use it as part of your therapy.
How can I help you?
