Depression

Depression is a terrible illness that has different symptoms in different people. We try to determine the psychological reason for each person’s depression, what medication would be the best fit for their type of depression, and encourage lifestyle changes to help with that type of depression. (This includes all types of depression: Major Depressive Disorder, Adjustment Disorder with depression, postpartum depression, depressive bipolar episodes, etc.

 

Depression actually impairs cognitive skills. We feel it is important to work with individuals to treat their depression — both with pharmaceuticals and therapy —to return them to their full cognitive capabilities so they can perform well at their jobs, and be more engaged in their personal lives.

 

Depression can cause what we call “cognitive distortions,” where people engage in habitual negative thought patterns such as: overgeneralizing, all-or-nothing thinking, catastrophizing, etc.  We work with individuals to help them perceive these cognitive distortions.  These occur in all types of depression: Major Depressive Disorder, adjustment Disorder with depressive symptoms, postpartum depression, etc.

 

One of the cognitive distortions depression can induce is to cause people to be extremely critical of themselves, which can cause them to become even more depressed.