Ways to Treat Depression with Hypnotherapy

Most people experience feelings of stress, unhappiness or anxiety during difficult times. A low mood may improve after a short period of time, rather than being a sign of depression.

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If you have been feeling low for more than a few days, take this short test to find out if you’re depressed.

One of the common misunderstandings about depression is that it’s similar to feeling sad or down. Depression may feel like: There’s no pleasure or joy in life. A person with depression may not enjoy things they once loved and may feel like nothing can make them happy.

There’s no single cause of depression. It can occur for a variety of reasons and it has many different triggers. For some people, an upsetting or stressful life event, such as bereavement, divorce, illness, redundancy and job or money worries, can be the cause. Different causes can often combine to trigger depression.

More women than men are diagnosed with depression, but this may be due in part because women are more likely to seek treatment. Factors that seem to increase the risk of developing or triggering depression include:

Certain personality traits, such as low self-esteem and being too dependent, self-critical or pessimistic.

The following are some of the typical signs of depression that may take over slowly like a fog rolling in on what was previously a sunny day and now is becoming darker with each minute.

• Symptom #1 – “Now, I can’t get out of bed in the morning. I just don’t have the same interest in things that I used to.”
• Symptom #2 – “I have body pains and I’m worried that I may have (fibromyalgia, cancer, arthritis, diabetes, etc.).”
• Symptom #3 – “I can’t seem to stop overeating and I gained 40 pounds.” Or “I have gone back to drinking, smoking cigarettes or pot, etc.”
• Symptom #4 – “I’m having trouble sleeping at night and I’m exhausted.”
  Symptom #5 – “I cry at the drop of a pin, but mostly I feel numb.”

Often these symptoms will be treated with drugs prescribed by a doctor. Anti-depressants, sleep medication, and perhaps a diet or stop smoking program will be prescribed. These treatment methods, of course, are aimed at symptom relief but don’t get down to treating the underlying cause of the depression.

Warning signs of depression – They can include:

• Trouble concentrating, remembering details, and making decisions.
• Fatigue.
• Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, and helplessness.
• Pessimism and hopelessness.
• Insomnia, early-morning wakefulness, or sleeping too much.
• Irritability.
• Restlessness.
• Loss of interest in things once pleasurable, including sex.

Many factors may play a role in depression, including genetics, brain biology and chemistry, and life events such as trauma, loss of a loved one, a difficult relationship, an early childhood experience, or any stressful situation. Depression can happen at any age, but often begins in the teens or early 20s or 30s.

Research suggests that depression doesn’t spring from simply having too much or too little of certain brain chemicals. Rather, there are many possible causes of depression, including faulty mood regulation by the brain, genetic vulnerability, stressful life events, medications, and medical problems.

Warning Signs of Mental Health Risk

• A Change in Personality. If someone is acting like a very different person, or not acting or feeling like them-self, this is a warning sign.
• Uncharacteristic Anxiety, Anger, or Moodiness.
• Social Withdrawal and Isolation.
• Lack of Self-Care or Risky Behaviors.
• A Sense of Hopelessness or Feeling Overwhelmed.

Types of depression:

• Major depression.
• Persistent depression.
• Manic depression, or bipolar disorder.
• Depressive psychosis.
• Perinatal depression.
• Premenstrual dysphoric disorder.
• Seasonal depression.
• Situational depression.

Some of the best techniques you can use to prevent or avoid depression relapse.

• Exercise regularly.
• Cut back on social media time.
• Build strong relationships.
• Minimize your daily choices.
• Reduce stress.
• Maintain your treatment plan.
• Get plenty of sleep.

Researchers have studied whether hypnosis can treat a variety of medical conditions, from irritable bowel syndrome to anxiety and depression. In the case of depression, hypnotherapy sessions may be focused on helping a person achieve a state of relaxation.

HOW DOES CLINICAL HYPNOTHERAPY TREAT DEPRESSION?

1. It helps you enter the subconscious:
First, we drop down from the conscious mind, which is only 10% of the mind into the subconscious mind. Now we are addressing the whole person, 100% of the mind rather than just treating the symptoms.

2. It helps you identify the “unfinished business”.
People often have what Dr. Fritz Perls called “unfinished business” with whatever has been lost, be it a loved one, a job, or a home. These unresolved feelings, such as resentments, regrets, blame, anger, guilt, jealousy, and fear are stored in the body and must be released as soon after the triggering event as possible. Otherwise they become deeply buried beneath the numbness created by the anti-depressant drugs, the addictive behavior, and the concurrent repression that occurs when trauma and grief go untreated. Clinical hypnotherapy works for depression because it removes the underlying basis of depression and completes the unfinished business that otherwise continues to recycle as self-sabotaging thoughts and behaviors.

3. It helps you “finish” the “unfinished business” and release the stored emotions/experiences.
With hypnotherapy, we can go down to the deepest level of these traumatic experiences, memories and stored emotions to release them from the mind and body. When this hypnotherapy process is completed, the client reports that their depression has lifted, that they have stopped the compulsive thoughts or behavior, and that they are ready to resume living their lives again.

4. It helps you replace the trauma with positivity.
With each healing session of clinical hypnotherapy, we can replace the fearful repetitive thoughts that often haunt people following a traumatic experience. Positive affirmations now work because the underlying emotional release has been accomplished.

5. It helps you use the power of hypnotic suggestion to create long-term improvement.
Hypnotherapy provides an effective way to access the individual’s ability to affect the physical body. Once self-sabotaging thoughts and behaviors have been resolved, the individual can begin to use hypnotic suggestibility to improve the body’s functioning. Hypnotherapy can be very helpful in correcting patterns of restless sleep, low energy or libido, headaches or chronic pain. And one can use hypnotherapy to increase motivation to exercise and eat properly.

Conclusion
Consistent research and methodology refinement has allowed hypnotherapy to progress as an advanced form of therapy to the point where clinical hypnotherapy is now regularly considered as a treatment option for depression. Working in tandem with a group of powerful psychotherapy techniques, hypnotherapy can be a highly successful form of treatment for individuals with depression.

Ref:. www.health.harvard.edu, www.helpguide.org, www.healthline.com, web.wellness-institute.org and www.mayoclinic.org

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