Assessment and Treatment for Depression

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Self-Assessment

If you are experiencing any of the following five or more symptoms from the depression criteria you need to go for a professional as soon as possible. There are plenty of online tools too from which you can check whether you are or not fall in the criteria but going to the professional and getting your check-up done is the first and most reliable thing to do. The tools that you find on the internet that proclaimed the self-assessment are not authorized and might give you the wrong sight about your problem. So, if you are experiencing apathy (loss of energy) or anhedonia (lack of pleasure) for a maximum of every day for two weeks seek help from a psychologist.  

Assessment:

Before starting the treatment, the psychologist conducts some serious assessment evaluations such as taking history sessions, interviewing with family, and using the right-fitted authorized assessment tools. The process of assessment in detail discussed below:

Conducting an Interview

This is the very first step that has been done by psychologists. The history of a client includes his personal lifestyle, family background, social circle, and the tragic event discussed in a detailed manner. The psychologist asks open and ended question from the client, listen carefully to what he says, and write some notes. In this process, the psychologist makes the client sure that every little information is saved with him and that confidentiality has been maintained. During the interview, the necessary observations about the client have been also made by professionals.

Interviewing with Family:

As the family environment plays a very crucial role in anyone’s life so the interview with a family member also takes place to see how they see the client’s problem and how their attitude and the client’s attitude affect each other.

Using the Authorized Tools

Before making a diagnosis psychologist gives the client to fill up a self-measure questionnaire for example for depression or negative emotions diagnoses usually DASS-42 (depression, anxiety, stress scale) is used. The score of this questionnaire helps in making any stance.  

Psychological Tests:

This is one of the major steps after gathering the information. Sometimes there is a blockage from a client or we can say that there are some painful memories in his consciousness that are very hard to reveal for a client, uncover those psychologists used some authorized tools such as the hand tree test (HTP), TAT, or any other suitable test. Sometimes the professional runs some blood tests to make sure that the depression is caused by some medical condition such as because of any vitamin insufficiency or a thyroid problem.

Treatment

According to statistics 80 to 90 percent of people respond positively or we can say there is a potential decrease in their symptoms and they feel better after getting the right amount of treatment. Although life is not a bed of roses and people encountered stressful situations from time to time but after discovering the right coping style most people can work through it. The following treatment for depression is discussed below:

Medication

This is not one of the best solutions to depression but medicine and therapy work hand in hand. Because as the causes suggested biochemical changing could be the strongest factor in persisting depression. To treat depression anti-depressants are used that have some sort of sedative effect on a person but it is non-habitual. Some improvements can be expected from antidepressants from the very first or two weeks of use but if a person didn’t find any betterment in his condition, he should have contacted his psychiatrist to give him an alternative. The practitioners normally advise the client to use the anti-depressants for like six months after the improvement.

Psychotherapy

There are numbers of therapy that works best for depression these are.

Cognitive behavioral therapy:

This therapy is one of the most effective therapies when it comes to treating depression. Depression comes from negative thoughts and CBT actually works on the negative thoughts. According to CBT thoughts generate feelings and feelings cause the behavior. This therapy emphasizes on reframing negative thought and exchanging it with positive ones. It helps to filter out the cognitive errors that are producing a negative view of oneself and the world. CBT assists a lot in boosting self-worth for instance your therapist might ask you to write some quality you consider you have in yourself that makes you unique from others.

 

 

Behavioral therapy

This therapy works on unproductive, unhealthy, or injurious behaviors. According to this therapy, behaviors are learned and can be changed. The main agenda is to work on unhealthy behavior and change it with more productive ones. It focuses on problem-solving techniques. Sometimes psychologists give you some behavioral checklist as your homework for example in depression person feels so unproductive a psychologist might give you a behavioral checklist according to your daily life activities to mark up what you did from those and for how much time until the next therapeutic session.

Group therapy

This therapy usually takes place when the severity of the disorder becomes mild. The psychologist designed a group of 4 to 7 people with the same illness and they share their journey to encourage and inspire each other.

Self-treatment

You cannot only rely upon your psychologist and psychiatrist to make you feel good about yourself again there is some work that you have to also do for yourself.

  1. Do not be a layman. Always learn about depression as much as you can. Have full command of how you feel, and what thoughts you have to communicate with your therapist next session that you consider important to get solved. Always right your negative thoughts or triggering events so it is easy for you to communicate with your therapist.
  2. Surrounded yourself with positive notes. Use sticky notes and write some meaningful short lines to them such as you are strong enough etc.
  3. Do not rush with your treatment. It might take some sessions to find the right technique to tackle your problem such as it can be possible that you probably don’t need the antidepressant and only half an hour of self-walk can work for you. Always cooperate with your therapist, and be open to him and the little new experiments too.
  4. Do not depend on medicine solely. Most of the time when people going through a hard situation, they use the anti-depressants as their coping strategy. They took that medicine become numb and didn’t deal with the actual issue.
  5. The medication can be appropriate for some symptoms of the depression such as the sleep or appetite problems but it is not good in the long run. Just because it reduces the severity of your physical symptom doesn’t mean it deal with depression as a whole. Therapy and physical exercise are as important and necessary as the medicine. If you only want to go for medication there is no problem in that if you have healthy life patterns but if negative thoughts are involved in it too the therapy is essential too.
  6. Always surround yourself with some positive interaction. If you got any negative thoughts talk to a friend whom you know and actually listen. Go outside meet with new people and always maintain a healthy distance. Be assertive and learn to say no when it is necessary to do.

6. If you feel that you are surrounded by negative thoughts smoke don’t stumble to talk to someone thinking that you are bothering other people sometimes having face-to-face interaction, makes you feel so much better.

7. Here is the most important thing consistency. Consistency is the key to treatment sometimes you might be annoyed by the time that is taken by your treatment but in the end, all the hustle has been worth it. Having ups and downs in treatment is normal.