Treatments for Depression: Treating Solutions to Depression With Consideration

Clinical psychology classes and pamphlets about depression will tell you that treatments for depression are widely available and that they can be highly effective. Treatments for depression include medication, counseling and other kinds of therapy. It’s often said that a combination of medication and therapy proves to be the best treatment.

Antidepressant drugs are prescribed to enhance the mood of people with depression. Most antidepressants work by slowing down the reuptake of neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that travel through the neurons in our brains. When neurons are done sending neurotransmitters, they bring them back inside. Antidepressants keep neurotransmitters related to mood working longer so that mood increases. It’s important to realize that antidepressants don’t work by taking away depression. Instead, it’s more like they lift you up so that the symptoms can improve.

Therapy is the other option for treating depression. Most people think of Freud and psychoanalysis, and while a form of it exists today, psychoanalysis in its original form is debunked and no longer practiced. The one element of Freud that remains is that therapy tries to get into the underlying causes of your problems. A common form of therapy is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which aims to treat the distorted thinking of depression patients so that they can change behavior that perpetuates their depression. By meeting with a therapist on a regular basis, patients can conceptualize what they’re feeling and going through and learn to cope with it.

Treatments for depression do work for people, but treating depression isn’t always as simple or effective as it might seem. For one thing, medication and therapy can cost a lot of money. Insurance helps decrease the cost, but the fees for your antidepressant refills accumulate especially if you’re going to take them for the rest of your life, and therapy can cost up to a little over $100 per session if you’re seeing a therapist at their private practice. There are also negative side effects for at least the first month while taking antidepressants, and it’s not guaranteed to work. Sometimes patients have to switch around to figure out which one helps them. Therapy can be effective if it’s consistent but patients have to find the therapist that’s right for them, which can be difficult.

Another issue with treatments for depression is that treatment is contingent upon the patient seeking it for themselves. The patient is responsible for getting their prescriptions and monitoring their intake, and therapy will only work if the patient is willing to participate. The problem is that depression can debilitate you and make you not want to do these things. This is where outside support can come in. Treatments for depression don’t all have to be professional. Friends and family who are supportive and understanding can do a lot for people with depression.

It’s never certain whether treatments for depression will work or not because everyone is different—they have different experiences, different problems, and different biological makeup and so on. Everyone has to pick the treatment that’s right for them, but figuring out which treatments for depression will work for you can be a challenge.