Our therapists provide depression counseling in Allentown, PA

For depression counseling I find that my approach that works best for this is a combination of mindfulness, CBT, and a few DBT skills. The reason I feel that this is the best approach is that it allows for clients to learn a few new skills and feel that the benefit is that allows for self-soothing and begins the process of self acceptance.

The tools that I use in treating depression vary from person to person. I feel that a person centered approach shows the best results and as such the skills I teach vary from person to person. I feel that to begin we look at challenging any negative thoughts the client may be having about themselves and work on ways of strengthening themselves to challenge their inner critic. I normally use this approach as it allows for the client to start to notice how a lot of what they are thinking about themselves is false and it allows them to slowly begin to feel more positive towards themselves.

Meaningful progress in depression treatment typically is noticed when you start to smile slightly more than usual. You start to be able to accept things about yourself and do not judge yourself too harshly. I find that by instilling hope and looking at ways of challenging negative thoughts as they arise can help to combat depression and as such, you start to develop an understanding about yourself that goes deeper.

In clients personal time I tend to encourage them to seek out supports from others, I tend to encourage people to push themselves a little bit further outside of their comfort zone each time we meet, and eventually look at ways of being able to find meaning in their lives. Clients are recommended to try new things and to use the skills of things that they enjoy. I think that while we battle depression we often tend to lose interest in doing things or being around others, and that is what I try to focus on first.

To prepare for counseling for depression I would recommend that you have a list of questions that you have about depression or better yet goals you would like to accomplish. I mention goals because a lot of times when we suffer from depression we tend to feel overwhelmed or feel as though we will never able to achieve them. I find that by having a small goal we can work together to get there and after each new goal we are starting to notice that the stones or burdens we are carrying on our backs, slowly start to fall off and we can begin to breath again.