Depression Counseling in Brentwood, CA.

I use several methods for helping you overcome depression. I support you in maintaining safety. Using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, I help you to identify unhelpful thoughts and learn how to restructure your thoughts. I help you identify root causes of your depression and find ways to reduce their impact by replacing them with activities and relationships that support you in increased positive mood and personal responsibility. Depression can be comorbid with other issues you may be struggling with and I take a holistic approach to help you address what is needed in order to become a more fulfilled, and satisfied individual.

When you’re depressed it makes life feel like you’re walking through mud, everything is more difficult and tiring and you feel less motivated to do anything. This can make depression incredibly difficult to deal with because it requires taking action to overcome. I have personal and professional experience in recovery from this unpleasant disorder, which gives me an edge and helping people to heal from depression.

Depression is usually caused from helplessness in the face of overwhelming situations. This can be a learned response from unresolved traumas in your past. My approach to depression is multifaceted, beginning with getting to know you and understanding your life and its hardships. Very quickly, I like to move into using Somatic Experiencing to help resolve past trauma and retrain your nevous system to be able to re-regulate itself in the face of what used to be overwhelming circumstances. I have seen a lot of people rise up out of the hell of depression, with and without medication, to live the lives they were meant to live.

I work with a depressed nervous system by working with the body. Often we struggle to sleep, eat, or accomplish relatively simple tasks. Our bodies are stuck with the brake on. When our body thinks it is futile, out mind follows quickly thereafter and we begin to tell ourselves how pointless things are and how worthless we are. I work with the whole body to re-regulate the body to enable you to get back to a whole integrated self.

For clients experiencing depression, I help them explore both external and internal circumstances that are impacting their mental health and look for relationships in their lives that are impeding the healing process. Then we do relational work together to move out of a place of hopelessness and helplessness into a place of strength and empowerment.

When depression hits, it's like a ton of bricks weighing on you. It feels like there is no way out of the fog. It can be helpful to have a place to explore this and validate how difficult it can be to experience depression. Therapy is a safe place for you to understand what underlying issues might be making the depression more difficult to manage. I will provide that safe place for you to gain understanding about yourself and the depression you experience. I will also work with you to find tools that can help you move through it with more ease and confidence. I look forward to supporting you through this process.

Ugghh! The crushing, heavy feeling of depression can make it difficult to get up in the morning, to find connection to others and to the world, to move forward at all. Worse, symptoms of depression can, in themselves, make us feel more depressed still, creating a downward spiral into an an abyss of emptiness. It's so hard to motivate one's self to do anything about depression because of the weight of it all. It can feel immobilizing. You don't have to keep feeling that stuck, awful feeling. I can help! Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has been shown to be as effective as medication for treating depression and getting you back to the life you want to live.

It can often seem like society expects us to be happy and positive at all times, that any admission of sadness or a loss of motivation, energy, or engagement with life is a personal failure. But Depression isn't a personal failure, and it is also more than just "feeling sad". If you find yourself down in the hole of disconnection, surrounded by a fog that is interfering with your life and relationships, you need a hand to help you climb out. A trained therapist understands the mechanics of depression and can help you understand it and find strategies to make your way up and out of it, and back into the light. Please contact me so we can begin to work on this process together.

First, it's important to me to understand what my clients mean by "depression" because how one client experiences depression can be very different than another client. This is necessary so I can customize the strategies I use for each specific client based on their unique experience of depression. Ultimately, my clients can expect to discover real-world steps they can take to feel not just "less depressed" but better about their life - and more positive and hopeful.

Are you feeling sad? Hopeless? Worthless? Are you struggling to find motivation? How about the energy needed to connect with friends? Or are you feeling isolated? All of these (and more) are very common symptoms of depression. As your therapist, I will use CBT therapy to improve your quality of life. I love using CBT for depression because it makes common sense. We learn to notice those negative thoughts. Then we learn together which thoughts are hurting you and causing you to feel emotional pain. Lastly, we work together to change and replace those thoughts with something better. It's not a magical cure, but this is a long-standing and proven technique for depression and I find it helpful!