Depression Treatment

Are You Struggling With Depression? Is There an Effective Depression Treatment?

by Mihaela Ivan Holtz, Psy.D., LMFT

Are you experiencing sadness or a lack of motivation or energy? Maybe you feel empty, disconnected, or isolated. Perhaps it seems like you don’t experience pleasure or joy anymore. Nothing seems to inspire you and you feel emotionally flat too often.

You may be asking yourself: am I experiencing depression? Do I need depression treatment?

Depression can keep you from showing up in life. It can interfere with your relationships, creativity, and productivity. When you suffer from depression you don’t feel able to invest yourself in either your personal and professional life.

What Causes Depression?

The causes of your depression are as unique and multifaceted as you are.

Perhaps you feel your life is not a reflection of your full potential. Your career has not brought you the success you expected. The belief that you’re not reaching your dreams or goals (and you may never get there) is triggering feelings of hopelessness.

Maybe you have everything you thought you could ever want—money, achievement, fame— but you still feel empty and unfulfilled. You’ve been hiding in your work and career, afraid to admit how unhappy and depressed you are.

It’s possible that you just feel emotionally trapped in certain aspects of your life. You don’t see a way out, and this drains your sense of satisfaction and joy, which makes you feel even more hopeless and depressed. Although you feel some emotional sparks sometimes, most of the time you feel down, isolated, and disconnected.

Or, unhealed emotional trauma could be holding you back. Whether it’s an event from childhood or more recent events, trauma can make you feel stuck as it forces you to relive the same old stories. Though you may have avoided facing some ghosts of the past, recurring feelings of depression could be trying to show you that you can’t ignore these unhealed wounds anymore. Many times, symptoms of depression are signs that a story from the past needs to be re-written.

When you address the depression that has been dimming your light, you can begin to feel emotionally connected, happy, and fulfilled. You can show up in life with presence and aliveness. You can fully invest yourself in your relationships, goals, and creative pursuits.

Contact me today to set up a free introductory consultation to see if I am the therapist who can help you get the depression treatment you need.

Depression Is More Common Than People Realize

It’s not unusual for people to minimize or deny depressive symptoms. In particular, those who are highly functioning, bright, and creative can struggle with feelings of depression but will avoid seeking help.

As a creative, insightful individual, you have a great ability to feel and see things on a deeper level. You have a rich mind, and you’re motivated to accomplish your goals and achieve your dreams. These assets can actually make you more sensitive or susceptible to depression. When you feel out of touch with who you are, feel lost in a life that doesn’t reflect you, or feel as if you cannot express your bright and creative mind, symptoms of depression can get a hold of you.

When depressive symptoms go unresolved for too long, it impacts the quality and the development of your life. Your personal and professional relationships, your ability to be creative or accomplish your goals, and your capacity to handle professional events or being around people or in the public eye are all affected when you have depression.

Fortunately, psychotherapy is very effective for healing depression. In particular, certain types of therapy for depression can get at the root of what is causing your symptoms and bring lasting healing from the inside-out.

Depression Therapy Can Help You Achieve Personal And Professional Success

With the help of a skilled depression therapist who is attuned to your needs, you can successfully heal from your traumatic past and unprocessed feelings of loss and grief. You can change unhealthy psychodynamics that can keep you trapped in circumstances that are not good for you.

Facing depression and the resulting emotional conflicts, creative blocks, or performance anxiety can help you feel like yourself again. It allows you to move forward and create your life.

Psychotherapy for depression will enable you to regain a sense of vitality to show up in your life with all that you are – your unique talents, skills, and abilities that enable you to connect, create, and accomplish your goals or dreams.

How Does Therapy For Depression Work?

To get to the root of depressive symptoms, as your therapist for depression, I call on my skills and experience in:

• Relational psychoanalytic approaches combined with the neuroscience of psychotherapy and relationships
• EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
• CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), mediation, and mindfulness
• Solution Focused Therapy

Using these psychotherapy approaches results in a very effective depression treatment. I can help you shift patterns and memories that fuel depression. With support from a therapist for depression, you can move from feeling hopeless to being an active creator of your own life.

Outside of our sessions, I may recommend regular journaling and mindfulness practices. We will also discuss how to set boundaries in both your work and in your relationships so you can learn to recognize and avoid potentially abusive patterns that may have contributed to depression.

Getting in touch with and finding relief from the challenging feelings and emotions that hold you back will revitalize your life energy, helping you rediscover a full, vibrant, healthy way of living.

Counseling for depression can help you find renewed joy in life so you can show up in your relationships, work, or creative pursuits more fully. When we look at you as a whole person and heal all that you are, you’ll find that you’re also able to advance your career and find more personal and professional fulfillment.

One of my specialties as a psychotherapist is working with artists. I have helped many creatives and performers work through the underlying causes of depression and have watched them find great professional and personal success as a result. Addressing their depression allowed them to dissolve creative blocks and performance anxiety so they could feel a deeper sense of connection to their art and craft.

You May Have Some Concerns About Depression Therapy…

Isn’t therapy for depression expensive?

Depression therapy can be an investment, an investment in both your personal and professional future. Thanks to therapy, you can get free of old, self-defeating cycles and heal emotional pain. Reducing your depression and learning better coping mechanisms will lead to a happier, healthier inner life and professional life.

I’m ashamed that I have depression.

It’s normal to feel ashamed, but this is just one more way that depression holds you back. There is nothing wrong with you. In fact, depression is much more common than you think. Psychotherapy can help normalize and validate any concerns that you have, so you can start your healing journey. On the other side, you’ll gain a sense of pride and efficacy as you become empowered by the changes you’ll make.

I can take care of myself; I don’t need a depression therapist.

You may have been coping on your own for a while, but perhaps the methods you’ve been using have acted only as a band-aid over the real issue, because you have never addressed the root causes. This can result in an ongoing cycle of frustration: you end up stuck in place, never able to move forward. Therapy can help address the underlying cause of the problem rather than help you mask it with coping mechanisms.

Can I do my depression therapy online?

Online therapy can be an effective way to get the depression therapy you need. I have been working with clients online or via phone therapy for years, and, of course, this has increased dramatically over the last year of the COVID-19 crisis. My approach to online therapy sessions follows a similar outline as they would in the office, and I draw from the same set of evidence-based treatments (including EMDR).

Schedule Your Appointment For Depression Therapy

If you are ready to begin the road to recovery from depression, I offer a free 15-minute consultation by phone. You can reach me at 310-424-0292 or through the contact page.

Learn more about me and my approach.