Brian Thomson - Managing Depression with CBT for Dummies

Introduction

D epression is one of the most common health problems that people experience, and it can decimate lives. Research shows that one in five people suffer from depression at some time, and yet its still one of the most misunderstood conditions, often confused with sadness, misery or unhappiness.

This book guides you towards a better understanding of depression and helps you to recognise and address the symptoms by using an approach called cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). The great thing about CBT is that it uses tried and tested methods to help you understand how you became depressed and what is keeping you depressed and empowers you not only to help yourself overcome it and start living a fulfilling life again, but to help other people too.

One patient told us that shed suffered from depression all her life, and that she thought it was genetically based because both her parents had suffered from depression throughout their lives. However, she agreed to try CBT and within the first few weeks she had begun to understand her depression better and to feel empowered to take charge of her life. By the time she completed her treatment, she felt confident in dealing with whatever life threw at her without sinking into depression. At the end of her treatment, she sent us a lovely thank-you card, in which she said:

If only someone had explained these things to me when I was young, my life would have been so different. I used to think that it was the things that happened in my life that made me depressed, but youve taught me that its more about how you respond to what happens, and this has given me the power to keep my depression at bay.

Similarly, CBT can work for you, helping you to understand and overcome your own depression. And with all the practical information gathered together between its covers, Managing Depression with CBT For Dummies is just the tool you need to get started and use CBT yourself.

About This Book

When youre suffering from depression, you often feel isolated and as if nothing can improve your situation. But think of this book as an encouraging friend whos on your side. Within it, I help you to become your own therapist, leading you to understand what causes depression, what keeps you depressed, and what effects depression has on your life and the people around you. I then give you lots of tips for taking back control of your life and for improving your mood.

To do so, I describe CBT and the many practical ways in which it can help. More specifically, I examine:

The basic CBT model of how depression affects your thoughts, feelings and behaviour

The scientific bases for how CBT can help

Ways to identify the specific problems that depression is causing in your life

How to identify and achieve realistic goals

How to discover what causes you to become depressed

How to overcome depression

How to prevent depression recurring in the future

Conventions Used in This Book

My aim is to make this book extremely easy to find your way around, and to help out I use a number of conventions:

Italics indicate new words and medical terms. Although I stick to language that avoids jargon and technical terms as much as possible, some new concepts occasionally arise that require explanation. I highlight these with italics and explain the term prior to discussing how to use it.