Simply getting to work when you’re depressed can feel like an impossible task. Dealing with people in the workplace and doing the most basic parts of the job seem to take more energy than you have. The routine becomes hard labor, and the stress and depression feed off each other. Over the past year, several […]
avoidance
Starting on a Path toward Acceptance
For some time I have been working with the idea of accepting depression rather than trying to fight it. That’s an approach to therapy based on mindfulness and an attempt to broaden the range of experience you can live with comfortably. Although I haven’t worked with a therapist trained in any of the acceptance and […]
How Do We Change in Psychotherapy?
The first session I ever had with a psychiatrist proved to me that I could achieve a real change through psychotherapy. While in college, I had been immobilized by panic attacks and was desperate to get help. I spent three hours with a psychiatrist deeply engaged in the confusing mass of experience I needed to […]
Conversations with Myself: Accepting the Past
Accepting the past is hard work. Avoidance of any part of the past that makes me uncomfortable used to be my go-to strategy, even though it never worked for long. I guess it’s the opposite of the tendency to obsess about everything I ever did wrong. (For example, reliving that humiliating interview 43 years ago, […]
Starting a New Series on Acceptance
Is it possible to learn to live well using an acceptance approach to depression rather than the strategy of trying to suppress or avoid it? That’s the question I’ve been exploring. Most of the treatments for depression I’ve used have been based on avoidance. Reduce stress, overcome depression, control anxiety, conquer anger. Get rid of […]
