Do You Know...
Depression Can Be Helped ? ? ?
...Without Drug Therapy?

DO NOT EXPECT DRUGS TO PERFORM ANY MAGIC TRICKS FOR YOU.

DRUGS DO NOT CURE ANYTHING!

All drugs have side effects... some may be fatal... to you or to others!

You can become dependent on drugs, without the healing you can have... is this what you want?

If you want to cure your depression, permanently, consider this:

• Your feelings are valid and need to be listened to... not stuffed down and denied. I teach you what to do with them instead.

• Feelings are valid signals, they are guidance from your body.

• Grief is necessary work for all losses; give it time and attention. Make it okay to cry. Ask for my page on Grief and Loss:

  Please email the page on Grief & Loss. Be sure to include your full name, your permanent email address, and feel free to include up to one page regarding your situation. [SORRY THIS LINK ISN’T WORKING YET... USE THE EMAIL LINK AT LEFT SIDE OR BOTTOM, PLEASE.]

• Trauma from the past can be affecting you and needs to be healed.

• Life Scripts or Behavioral Patterns can also be involved in the causes of depression.

• Check out what really can work for you!

• Work with me locally or from a distance . . .

• Learn about the drug store in your brain!

• Decide to take your life back!

In the first year of the Q&A Infosource Guides in the front of the local U. S. West Dex phone book, under Mental Health, one of the topics sponsored by Life Directions Counseling Center was “Depression”.

So that you may know more about frequently identifiable causes, and potential cures for Clinical Depression, preliminary to those which can be identified for you personally within your actual counseling/therapy sessions, I offer the following, beginning with the text of the script which was sponsored:

“Most people feel sad at one time or another. Depression, however, is more than just sad feelings. In addition to feeling down, people who are [clinically] depressed are uninterested in the people and activities that they previously enjoyed. They may lose their desire for sex. They may sleep and eat either too much, or too little.

“In general, people who are depressed and in need of professional help are those who cannot seem to help themselves feel better.

“There are many causes of depression; some causes are obvious, such as the death of a loved one, or the break-up of an important relationship. Some causes are not so obvious: the birth of a child, marriage, or college graduation — events that would seemingly bring happiness can sometimes result in depression.

“In most cases, depression is successfully treated on an outpatient basis. In severe cases, hospitalization may be necessary to prevent suicide.

“People who are depressed often feel better with outpatient treatment, such as psychotherapy, medication or both.”*

How We Help You:

In my practice of psychotherapy, at Life Directions, I offer you additional understanding of depression and its causes – with truly effective tools for reversing this often debilitating problem, and the opportunity to gain its cure within my proven beyond-traditional counseling therapy approach – “The Golden Keys...”.

Because I want you to be able to do more than just ‘feel better’; I know you can have the optimum happy, successful and fulfilling life... if you choose to...

And I help you to go well beyond masking your feelings with drugs – to actually curing your depression with natural, effective and proven therapeutic tools for healing, growth and change!

Is this what you want, too?

If you are currently on drug therapy when you come to me, we talk about your goals for tapering off of those drugs, as you begin to feel better within this therapy. (It is never wise to just abruptly stop what you are taking; many drugs must be tapered off to avoid serious problems.)

If you are not on drug therapy, whether your depression is mild or advanced, long-standing or relatively recent, I believe it can be reversed (in most instances without drug therapy or hospitalization).

Either way — if you are ready, and willing to put your personal, concerted effort into cooperating with the therapy and doing the homework in this important and effective healing program...

You can learn to have natural ‘highs’!

And... not only can your highs be higher, but so can your lows! ...all within a healthy, normal, acceptable, comfortable range of good / far better feelings...

You can smooth out the rocks on the road of life: from gigantic boulders, down to rocks, down to small pebbles, down to smooth sand and ultimately, if you choose, a well-paved super-highway, upon which you can breeze through life in a body that is a vehicle of joy for you.

What Are Some of the Causes of Depression?

• General unhappiness which cannot be pinpointed
• Bouts of crying or despair
• Losses which you have never grieved
• Physical problems/health issues
• Panic attacks and/or isolation
• Generalized anxiety
• Guilt (from any of many sources)
• Religious ‘shoulds’ and dictates
• Alcohol or drug abuse
• Incest, rape or sexual abuse
• Emotional/verbal and/or physical abuse (past and/or present)
• Control and isolation by a partner or parent

What About Traditional Treatments?

In severe cases, hospitalization has been included.

At Life Directions I recognize the fallacies of throwing prescriptions at people who are in emotional pain, feel they are wallowing in a bottomless pit of despair, and do not know how to climb back out of that pit.

Most drugs have side effects, and do not create a cure, but only mask the symptoms of your true problem.

I believe that depression is itself a symptom which, left untreated, can grow into a problem of greater proportions — Clinical Depression. This has often been called a ‘Chemical Imbalance’, by psychiatrists.

The primary instance in which I see the greatest validity or benefit from drug therapy, for the ‘average’, functioning individual, is in bi-polar or manic/depressive illness. In a true instance of this problem, lithium may be very helpful. (I am not an MD, so I do not prescribe drugs, however, there may be alternatives...)

In severe depression, or suicidal behavior, and perhaps with panic attacks, the temporary use of prescription therapy and/or hospitalization may have been useful, but must be combined with effective counseling therapy. (And, as you know, if you have read other pages on this web site, I do not have much faith in traditional counseling therapies.)

If you listened in on their honest lunch talk, these highly degreed Psychotherapists, actually admit and lament that their methods are only somewhat helpful to their patients — maybe two percent of the time! I believe that is a shameful situation, and actually constitutes an ongoing fraud, perpetrated upon an unwitting public.

Read what these Noted Therapists have said about their traditional training and its shortcomings. It’s a travesty...

Do you really want to be feeding the pocketbook of a therapist who might or might not be willing to admit they truly cannot help you, and that the drugs they might prescribe will not cure you ...might even harm you?

I am sure you would say, “Of course not!”

And do you want to find real help in a truly effective, proven therapy — the last therapy you’ll ever need?

Of course, your answer is “Yes — absolutely!”

What is this Recommended Treatment?

At Life Directions Counseling Center I moved beyond and away from the traditional, passive methods; stayed clear of confrontational approaches which have been used in some settings.

We succeed with my effective, proven (since 1986), proprietary counseling therapy (I was inspired to create and own it) — the treatment which focuses on getting at the causes and healing those — and which gives you the tools to just naturally help you cure your symptoms.

In “The Golden Keys to Recovery” I help you understand and heal those causes, and work toward the speediest recovery possible from the factors which contribute to your depression and all of the other current elements involved in your life, which may be adding to your pain.

BE AWARE: No symptom is an isolated thing; your life and its manifestations are all inter-related.

It would be ineffective to treat depression (and most any other challenge) as though it existed all by itself.

There will at some point have been one or a number of things which acted as triggers — things which one was “depressed about”; or which one did not deal with – but stuffed the feelings down and buried them.

These will usually have come on top of other factors — the strong contributors to the underlying feelings which allowed the triggering effect to gain a real foothold.

• Sometimes there is a situation of family denial and stoicism; being told to ‘buck up’, not to cry, no allowance of grief, no permission to show feelings of sadness or pain;

• There may be an inherited pattern of negative thinking/expectations, and the (conscious or unconscious) tendency to perceive each upcoming challenge as overwhelming;

• This often includes such feelings as lack of confidence, low self-esteem, poor expectations about the future, feelings of unlovability;

• We may frequently find a history of family dysfunction, abuse, and unmet emotional needs;

• and many other things, including financial crises, and losses of various kinds;

• There is often a lack of faith (in oneself, in a higher power or divine providence);

• See also the page on Seasonal Affect Disorder, which affects people in northern latitudes, where the winter days are shorter and often gray (sunless).

  S.A.D. is a definite contributor to depression, and can aggravate feelings of fear and panic about other factors, such as emotional / financial crises in one’s life.

“If I choose this help, where do we start?”

I teach you that your thoughts affect how you feel, and that if you are feeling hopeless, fearful, resentful or angry (or hold onto any other negative emotions), if you have buried your pain and your grief — these all turn in on you; and predominantly negative feelings produce toxic chemicals which perpetuate that depression and pain.

The brain and most cells of the body make up a veritable pharmacopeia – a ‘chemical factory’ which is flooding your body with either toxic or favorable chemicals all of the time, based upon the thoughts, feelings – and the pictures – the expectations you hold in mind.

(We all know what a ‘gut feeling’ is; this is part of the communication from your internal guidance system, and the strong mind/body connection which is at work day and night.) These feelings are there for a reason – to be paid attention to!

(The trick is in distinguishing habitually depressed thoughts and feelings from our ‘real’ guidance!) I help you to make that distinction.

If you continually stuff your feelings down, hold in anger, fear, disgust, hate, and frustration – it is no wonder you can reach a state of ‘chemical imbalance’ – your body is continually being flooded with toxic chemicals!

Whether you explode in anger or hold it in, you are also usually harming yourself more than the person toward whom your anger is directed.

Your thoughts are literally making you sick! I help you learn how to change those thoughts – and your results... permanently. Yet it’s much more than just about positive thinking...

• My approach to healing explores background issues which may have contributed to the underlying problems – those causes of your overall feelings about yourself, your life prospects and total happiness – your self-esteem, self-image, and confidence having become damaged in the first place.

• We work together to help you heal those early traumas, and to bring you back up to (or perhaps help you gain for the first time) a picture of and feelings about yourself which are positive, loving, happy, and where good things are possible for you.

• We look at and help you to deal effectively with all past and currently contributing issues... including others in your life who damage your self-esteem on a continuing basis.

• You learn to love and give to yourself and others in healthy, non-addictive ways – to become healthily ‘selfish’ – to stop putting your needs aside/last and to be able to meet them in a balanced, nurturing way.

It is possible to become truly healthy in your emotional life – starting now – you can begin to feel happy, joyful, interested in life again, and be about the business of creating the life and future you desire!

And, yes, you may give yourself permission to begin imagining it that big!

Are you ready to start feeling good —

right away... ???

Call me NOW! ...I am here to help YOU!

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