Achieving Your Potential Despite Depression

"We all know the saying, "it ain't over until it's over." People who are depressed often think, "It's over." Yet over and over, my patients see that, with treatment, their lives are not over at all. Instead, they discover that meaning and purpose are within their grasp. Love, belief, and confidence in themselves grow. They have a newfound ability to make healthy decisions, exert agency over their lives, focus, exude positivity, discover beauty, and enjoy relationships with loved ones."

"Psychiatrist Victor Frankl wrote that life is primarily "a quest for meaning." When people are depressed, they feel their lives are meaningless. As a result, they stop striving to achieve their goals. In a potentially endless vicious cycle, their depression leads to an inability to act in constructive ways. Their lives become even more bleak and sorrowful. When meeting with a severely depressed patient, the first challenge for the therapist is to pull them out of the abyss. It's about the resurrection of hope."

"The first challenge of a therapist when meeting with a severely depressed patient is resurrecting hope. A patient may not recognize things are better until symptoms are far back in the rearview mirror. With successful treatment, love, belief, and confidence in oneself grow. Breaking old patterns, finding satisfaction, setting boundaries, and pursuing dreams are all possible. When meeting with a severely depressed patient, the first challenge for the therapist is to pull them out of the abyss."

Severe depression often creates a pervasive sense that life is over by stripping away meaning, motivation, and the drive to pursue goals. Treatment can restore hope, reignite meaning and purpose, and rebuild love, belief, and self-confidence. Recovery enables healthier decisions, personal agency, focus, positivity, appreciation of beauty, and improved relationships. Therapists must initially resurrect hope and investigate the origins and precipitating causes of the mood decline. Breaking the cycle of inactivity and addressing underlying triggers allows patients to break old patterns, set boundaries, find satisfaction, and pursue long-held dreams.

Read at Psychology Today