Understanding Depression

Everyone feels 'down' from time to time, but depression is more than that. When you are depressed your low mood can last for weeks at a time. While mild depression might not stop you from living your life, severe depression can make you feel suicidal and unable to function normally. It is thought that between 3 and 7 people out of every 100 will experience depression every year. The good news is that there are many effective psychological and medical treatments for depression. 

The Understanding Depression guide is designed to help depressed clients to understand more about their condition. As well as a clear description of symptoms and treatments, the guide explores key maintenance factors for depression including:

• Motivation and activity
• Unhelpful thinking habits
• Rumination and worry
• Your past, beliefs, rules, and assumptions

• Scaffold knowledge. The guides are perfect during early stages of therapy to help your clients understand how their symptoms fit together and make sense.
• Reassure and encourage optimism. Many clients find it hugely reassuring to know there is a name for what they are experiencing, and that there are evidence-based psychological models and treatments specifically designed to help.
• De-mystify the therapy process. To increase your client’s knowledge of the therapy process and the ingredients that it is likely to involve. If you can help your clients to understand why an intervention is important (think exposure!) it can help encourage them to engage.
• Signposting. If you’re just seeing a client briefly for assessment, or you have a curious client who wants to know more, these resources can be a helpful part of guiding them to the right service.
• Waiting time

• Beck, A. T., Bredemeier, K. (2016). A unified model of depression: integrating clinical, cognitive, biological, and evolutionary perspectives. Clinical Psychological Science, 4(4), 596-619.
• Beck, A. T., Rush, A. J., Shaw, B. F., Emery, G. (1979). Cognitive Therapy of Depression. New York: Guilford press.
• Cuijpers, P., Quero, S., Noma, H., Ciharova, M., Miguel, C., Karyotaki, E., ... & Furukawa, T. A. (2020). Psychotherapies for depression: a network meta-analysis covering efficacy, acceptability and long-term outcomes of all main treatment types. World Psychiatry.
• Culverhouse, R. C., Saccone, N. L., Horton, A. C., Ma, Y., Anstey, K. J., Banaschewski, T., ... & Bierut, L. J. (2018). Collaborative meta-analysis finds no evidence of a strong interaction between stress and 5-HTTLPR genotype contributing to the development of depression. Molecular Psychiatry, 23(1), 133-142.
• Dimidjian, S., Barrera Jr, M., Martell, C., Munoz, R. F., & Lewinsohn, P. M. (2011). The origins and current status of behavioral activation