Psychotherapists can help us make breakthroughs in dealing with depression, but often the insights gained during a session don’t lead to permanent change. Why is it that we can’t always put the new insight into daily use and sometimes forget it as soon as we’re out of the room? That’s the problem that a new […]
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Dreams of Depression and Healing
Dreams of depression have often marked moments of crisis or breakthrough to recovery in my experience, but it has been many years since I’ve written about them. Here is a revised version of a post – actually a journal entry – that reminded me how mysterious the cycles of the illness can be. Depression comes, […]
How Does Depression Change You? Can You Ever Be Yourself Again?
Have you ever wondered if multiple episodes of depression change you so much that you’ll never get back to your old self? Most people I hear from say: I want to be myself again. That’s their definition of recovery. Can it happen?
I found an interesting discussion about long-term changes in an online journal called Medicographia. The editors posed a question to psychiatrists and researchers from around the world and printed their responses together.
Here’s the question: Is the patient really the same after a major depressive episode?
Revisiting: Recovery and Creative Experience
All that I am, all that life has made me, every past experience that I have had – woven into the tissue of my life – I must give to … new experience. … [The] past … has indeed not been useless, but its use is not in guiding present conduct by past situations. We […]
Trying to Work When Depressed
(Note: Since this post appeared, the Recover Life from Depression site has been combined with this one. The posts referred to are now at Storied Mind, and the links below will take you to them.) I’ve recently completed a series of posts at the Recover Life site about handling the effects depression at work. I’ve […]
Depression at Work-3: Should You Change Your Job or Your Life?
Sooner or later depression forces you to make changes in your worklife. If adapting at your present job doesn’t help, then it’s probably time to look at other possibilities. However difficult, impractical or even impossible the alternatives might seem, it’s worth considering what else you could do.
This post looks at three strategies that could help you manage depression by changing your work situation: frequent job changes, getting out of a toxic work environment, or changing the type of work you do. These are a few ideas to help you come up with your own solution. At the least, they might help you ask the right questions about what you want and need.
