"FINALLY FINDING HAPPINESS- DEPRESSION AND HYPNOSIS"
Complete article: Your Health Connection, Emotions in Motion December 2007
Excerpt from an article written by Dr. Ron Soderquist, Ph.D.
and Ms. Lynn Di Sarro, M.A., M.F.T.
Major depression affects a person’s physical health as well as how he or she feels thinks and acts toward others. Overwhelming emotions of sadness, anger, lethargy and hopelessness are not uncommon. And throughout depression, normal living is very difficult and sometimes impossible. People who are depressed often find themselves thinking or saying things such as: “I feel like I’m at the bottom of a deep pit and can’t get out,” or “I cry and have not energy to do anything,” or “I just don’t enjoy anything anymore.”
In fact, major depression is all too common and affects an estimated nineteen million American adults every year. Experts claim nearly twice as many women as men suffer from major depression, but, at the same time, four times as many men suffer from alcohol addition.
Dysthymic depression, however, is a lower intensity depression, but lasts for years on end. While not completely disabling, some compare life with this type of depression to driving a car with the emergency brake on- slow and difficult. You may be wondering what causes depression. Does an imbalance of chemicals in the brain cause depression? Can stressors in our lives, or the way we think cause depression? If so, does personal stress or negative thinking change brain chemistry? The answer is, yes: all of the above.
Depression often starts with negative thinking and an unbalanced life. These destructive patterns of thinking and behaving are usually learned in childhood. Those who suffer verbal and physical abuse in childhood can become depressed at an early age. If untreated, these patterns can eventually lead to obsessive thoughts and destructive behavior in adulthood:
“I am so critical of myself. I beat myself up all the time.
I can’t help it, and I have a full-time critic living in my head.”
“I have no friends. I am not open with anyone. When I was
a kid,
I learned it was safer to keep my thoughts and feelings to myself.”
“I was sexually abused when I was twelve. I can’t seem to
get beyond it.”
Adult stress and trauma can also trigger depression:
“I was just diagnosed with cancer.”
“My spouse announced he/she is leaving me for another.”
“Last year my son/daughter was killed.”
“My husband has been relocated and we have to leave
our home and friend of more that fifteen years.”
There is not end to these lists. Though traumatic, none of these awful experiences in and of themselves cause depression. But if you get stuck in the habit of dwelling on them obsessively, you are creating an environment for depression. Others with the same kind of tragedy may feel the same shock and sadness, but because they do not obsess about them, they are able to move on with their lives without the burden of depression.
That said, perhaps there is no gene that causes depression. Perhaps there are only learned patterns of thinking and behaving that lead to depression. People looking for relief often turn to anti-depressant medication, which has about a 30 percent success rate. Fortunately, when drugs are prescribed, enlightened doctors now urge patients to get involved in an active form of psychotherapy at the same time for better results. In fact, Hypnosis, expertly done, is an active form of psychotherapy and has been proven to help most types of depression.
In the right hands, hypnosis is a way to empower people and a way to enable the mind to change focus from the negative to the positive.
Isn’t it lovely how heart-warming memories can be triggered by a smell, sound, or sight? For instance, every time I smell lilacs, I feel like I am instantly walking up the path to my grandmother’s kitchen door. My step quickens as I smell her newly baked sugar cookies. And it happens instantly, as if it’s part of a computer program. The human mind has an amazing ability to transport us to happy memories as well as memories filled with pain. With this in mind, choose a therapist skilled in reprogramming.
If you want to make important changes in therapy, sympathetic listening may not be all you need. That’s like your mechanic saying: “Let’s talk about the engine noise and how you feel about it.” No, what you want to hear from your therapist is, “Let’s find the problem and fix it.” If this is where you are in your healing, consider a therapist with hypnosis training and the tool to empower you towards positive constructive thinking.
With advanced forms of hypnosis, including NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), many depressed and anxious patients regain control of their lives by taking the focus off obsessive thinking. As a physician friend commented recently: “There are not negative side effects to your kind of therapy. And because you are putting out the fire at its source, there is less chance of a flare up later on.”
Complete article: Your Health Connection, Emotions in Motion
December 2007
Excerpt from an article written by Dr. Ron Soderquist, Ph.D.
and Ms. Lynn Di Sarro, M.A., M.F.T.
