Depressed? In despair? Please be assured: hypnotherapy for depression could be the answer you’ve been looking for
Depression can feel like a living hell and I’m sorry if you’re here, looking for hypnotherapy, because you or a loved one are tangled up in it. I see a good many clients with this problem, in Reading, Oxford and online, and I know all too well that it’s a thoroughly debilitating condition. I see the struggles of my clients every day and I see them as they begin to drag themselves free of that dark and deep pit of misery.
Lockdowns and the effects of the covid 19 pandemic haven’t helped. Sajid Javid (the UK Health Secretary in recent times) said in 2021 that the number of people diagnosed with depression has doubled since the pandemic began. Up to one in five people were said to have suffered depression during the lockdowns. I suspect that this may be an under-estimate.
I’ve used hypnotherapy in Reading, Oxford, Thame, London and Wallingford to help people with depression. It’s a major part of my case-load and I love seeing my clients emerge from the darkness. You could break free from your depression too. Being depressed needn’t be a lifetime’s occupation. You could be free of it.
Depression is estimated by the World Health Organisation to be becoming one of the most common causes of ill-health in the 2020s. No matter how badly you feel right now, you’re certainly not alone. There are millions of people who have had it before you and there will be millions to suffer the curse of depression long after you’ve left it behind.
You could learn to leave it behind you. I know that it’s difficult to see things any differently right now but please take courage. You don’t have to spend the rest of your life feeling depressed.
I’ve worked with people who were so depressed that they could barely get out of bed. I’ve worked with people who only went out in order to find a way of ending it all. I’ve used it to help people who, when we first met, could see no way out of the problem.
Hypnotherapy could help you. It has helped hundreds and thousands of people before you. You could be next! It’s certainly worth the price of a telephone call in order to find out more. Give me a call or write to me via email and we’ll discuss how we might work together.
I also offer hypnotherapy for depression online, using vsee, zoom or whatsap. Hypnotherapy online is an effective means of securing help. If you can’t find a therapist to work with in your own area then perhaps online hypnotherapy could be an option. Please get in touch for more details as to how this works.
Get in touch, via telephone, email or even text message. I’ll be glad to talk with you.
There is a way out of the problem
The people come to see me for hypnotherapy for depression can often be in the very lowest of moods. They frequently try to tell me that they’re probably beyond help, that it’s just in their nature to be depressed and anxious.
I’m happy to say, however, that they almost invariably end our time together feeling better than they once imagined possible. Low moods, despair, hopelessness and misery are left behind as positivity and a new zest for life take over.
It’s not always an easy process. There are usually little relapses and set-backs along the way. However, you’ll begin to feel more equipped to deal with them. They’ll feel more manageable and less daunting.
Help is at hand. You don’t have to put up with being depressed. Most of my clients begin to see improvements quite quickly, improvements which deepen and consolidate over time.
They do this by setting low targets, achieving them and moving forwards to greater and greater goals. You could learn to leave depression and its causes behind you too. However, please bear with me whilst I explain why there’s no such thing as a quick fix. Anybody who promises one is likely to be inexperienced or merely deceitful.
(If you’d like to read some more about the causes of depression – particularly with regard to women – then please click here)
‘Should I see a therapist or see my GP for some anti-depressants?’
It’s not always fashionable to look for the longer-term solution these days. We’re all too busy and in too much of a hurry. We want solutions today and so grasp at the prescription when our doctor offers us a pill.
Do you match the diagnostic criteria for depression? Have a read here to begin finding out
I’m not against the use of anti-depressants, not at all. For many people they offer swift relief from the worst symptoms of depression, anxiety and panic attacks. For a few they can allow a person the respite necessary for their problems to fade away. Anything which helps is helpful.
They can, however, be nothing more than a temporary release
For many, however, particularly for those whose difficulties have been caused by long term issues, anti-depressants merely mask the symptoms of depression and fail to get to the cause. Once the pills are withdrawn the patient can be left with the risk of relapse.
Anti-depressants can certainly help bring depression down to manageable levels, leaving the sufferer able to function and rendering therapy easier to undertake. I do sometimes encourage my more severely depressed clients to consider adding medication to psychotherapy. Both together often work better than either alone, as clinical research clearly shows.
The figures speak for themselves. People who have had one bout of depression are more likely than those who haven’t to have another. Those who have had two bouts of depression are very likely to have a third. The chances of a further episode increase with every episode you’ve already had.
Relying on medication alone may not resolve the problem. Medication can be a fresh coat of paint and, yet, if the damp in the walls hasn’t been fixed then the problems which caused depression can find their way through, once again.
It’s here that the talking therapies, including hypnotherapy, can be of use. Anti-depressants can be great if your depression is due to something simple and temporary in its worst effects. For longer term issues only psychotherapy can hope to offer a long-term resolution.
Medication certainly has its place
I see people suffering grief, for example, for whom medication is a help. If, however, your problems stretch back into childhood or are more complex in their causes then resolving them through hypnotherapy can offer a more permanent solution. The answer needn’t lie in sticking stubbornly to medication or psychotherapy. For many people a combination of both proves to be the solution. Indeed, the research shows that a combination of medication and therapy proves to be the best hope of a positive result.
It’s certainly not weak to go to see your GP for medication or to come to see me for hypnotherapy. For every person who steps through my door there are many others who fail to take the courageous step you’re now considering. Seeking help, admitting the need for help, is a sign of strength. Mental health issues are rapidly losing their stigma. Please don’t hold back from getting in touch because you feel that calling me is a sign of being ‘broken’ or suchlike. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Please don’t listen to those therapists who rattle on about ‘big pharma’ and suchlike. In my mind they’re being irresponsible. Medication has its place. Follow your doctor’s advice and seek the best possible therapeutic help as quickly as you can.
Hypnotherapy for depression can be effective – with or without medication
Studies show that talking therapies are just as effective as anti-depressants at bringing short term relief. Studies also show that the talking therapies are more effective when it comes to preventing relapses into depression in the long term.
Other studies, furthermore, show that medication combined with talking therapies are more effective than either alone. Neither is the ultimate cure without the other. Both have potential roles to play.
You needn’t, therefore, reach for medication as a first-resort. You needn’t, in the other hand, hold out against its use if it would be helpful to use it.
You can steer a middle course and use it as a temporary help whilst working through the longer term causes with a hypnotherapist. Hypnotherapy could be the answer to depression and if a course of medication proves to be helpful too, so much the better.
The important thing is to seek help as soon as you begin to notice depression taking hold. The sooner you act, the more likely it is that you’ll enjoy the fastest possible escape from depression. If you are currently experiencing the signs of depression, call for help sooner rather than later. You’ll be glad you did!
How do I use hypnotherapy to help clients overcome depression?
Some of my clients come to see me whilst taking anti-depressants. I help them to resolve their longer term problems
whilst the pills take the edge off their immediate symptoms. Studies show that this is an effective combination. It really needn’t be “either, or.”
The first step is acceptance
First of all I help my clients to accept where they are, to observe, accept and feel compassion for their own emotional selves.
Depressed clients tend to blame themselves, to harshly condemn themselves for their present state of mind and this only makes things worse. I help them to stop this. I help them to begin to be kinder and more compassionate towards their own selves.
I then help my clients to begin to appreciate their strengths and positive traits more fully. I help them re-harness their will power in the pursuit of healthy lifestyle choices. I help them to cut back on poor coping strategies such as drinking, emotional eating, drugs or self-harm.
It’s also largely a matter of of learning to get your life back in order. Learning, bit by bit, to get doing whatever a non-depressed you would be doing will be vital. People who slide into lethargy have far too much time for rumination and misery. Get busy!
Hypnotherapy could help you to rebuild your life
I help them, step by step, to rebuild their lives – lives which have shrunk as people withdraw from the thing they once enjoyed. I support them in rebuilding relationships, re-adopting interests. This can be slow, for trying to go too far and too fast brings set-backs and a stronger sense of being a failure.
Step by step my clients – helped by the power of hypnotherapy – recapture their former sense of strength and drive. Step by step they resolve longer-term issues such as difficult childhoods, abusive relationships, early traumas and the like.
These steps, combined with empathy and patient understanding on my part, bring clients out of the fog of depression and causes them to step bravely into a brighter and more secure future.
I have helped plenty of people in Reading, Thame, Wallingford, Didcot and Oxford to leave depression behind them. There are people all across Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire who are living happier lives as a result of hypnotherapy. You could be next and it’ll only take the price of a ‘phone call to find out.
Go ahead! Give me a call!
I’d be more than glad to discuss with you how hypnotherapy could help you learn to deal with whatever it is which bothers you. If you’d like to call me then my numbers are 07786 123736 / 01865 600970 / 01183 280284. You could also email me at paul@resolvedhypnotherapy.co.uk or use the contact form below.
Please don’t continue to suffer without help. There is a solution and I’d be glad to help you to find it.