What are the behaviors of depression?

• Behaviors that appear in excess: crying, complaints, rest (sleep, stay lying …), etc.
• Behavior that appears less frequently: compliance with obligations, self -care, activities that provided us with well -being (staying with friends, practicing sports …), etc.
• Negative emotions: sadness, dejection, disappearance of positive emotions, etc.

Undoubtedly, depression generates deep discomfort in affected people, being often unable to enjoy with pleasant activities and continuing with their responsibilities. It is essential to have the help of a professional who guides us and offers us the necessary tools to face the situation.

How do we work depression in our psychology consultation?

In consultation we will address depression through cognitive-behavioral therapy. This therapy starts from the idea that depressive symptoms are caused by a deficit of coping skills, problems in emotional regulation and a vision of the world and the abilities of the extremely negative person. Therefore, the psychologist’s intervention will focus on teaching the patient to:

• Identify the relationship between thoughts, emotions and behaviors.
• Control automatic thoughts that generate discomfort.
• Explore evidence for and against their distorted thoughts.
• Replace distorted thoughts that generate discomfort with other realistic and adaptive.

Psychological techniques when addressing depression:

• Planning of a list of pleasant activities: the patient is asked to write a list with pleasant activities that provide well -being (both today and in the past). These activities may hierarchy depending on the degree of well -being that the person feels when performing them. In this way, the patient can begin to carry them out progressively.
• Behavioral activation: Through behavioral activation it is intended that the patient learn to organize his life and change his environment. He is proposed to increase pleasant and productive activities that can act as a positive reinforcement, thus improving their mood and quality of life.
• Troubleshooting: This technique aims to improve their coping strategies. To do this, the person is taught to identify the problem or problems he wants to solve, define the problem in detail, seek solutions, analyze the consequences, go to action and examine the results.
• Practice gratitude: when carrying out this practice, dopamine (welfare hormone) rises producing a pleasant sensation. In addition, it improves the quality of sleep if we apply it just before sleeping, since it helps us remove the focus of the negative. Some of the activities that the person can carry out to practice gratitude are: When we wake up, write 3 things that you thank, think about something positive that happened to you during that day before going to sleep, write a letter to someone you want to thank something, etc.