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Solutions for Depression, Guilt & Shame
Unpleasant Thoughts and Feelings © Martyn Carruthers

Would you like to benefit from our experience?

Having been depressed, and come out the other side, I feel empathy for the people who are stuck in depression with little sense of direction. Like many others, I found that depression can be a powerful learning experience - or a powerful trap. Used as a tool - depression offers a time to evaluate
"What makes sense in life?"

It's easier for health professionals and many of their patients to attempt to use drugs as a substitute for improving life. Medication with alcohol or nicotine, anti-depressants or stimulants is easier than applying intelligence, focus and analytical skills to complex emotions and difficult relationships.

Consequences of Depression

If you feel depressed, we recommend that you visit a medical doctor or clinical psychologist, especially if you consider harming yourself or others. Please refer people with symptoms of depression to appropriate health professionals.

Depression is probably part of your life. If you are not depressed - probably some people around you are - symptoms of depression affect about 10% of the world population. I find that common causes of depression are not so much life crises as unsatisfying relationships and lives that lack meaning. If you have quality relationships and a strong sense of purpose - a crisis is just another step!

Depression is also associated with food allergies, limiting beliefs, stress, codependence, addiction and relationship entanglements.

Depression is the inability to construct a future
Rollo May

Depression is a reminder that something is missing in your life, or that you are abusing, mistreating or ignoring important people. Martyn Carruthers

Depression reduces quality and sense of life. Depression that concerns the behavior of other people often seems to originate in earlier relationships. Depression often starts in codependent, symbiotic or dysfunctional families. I suggest that relationship problems require relationship solutions.

Sometimes depression makes more sense than joy - depression can motivate a search for meaning. Does your life make sense? A joyful sense of life often includes:

  • strong, known values
  • strong supportive beliefs
  • sense of connection to life
  • sense of purpose or vision
  • motivation to achieve a vision
  • healthy mind in a healthy body
  • your place within a community
  • transpersonal sense of connectedness
  • intimate home with an appropriate partner
  • nurture children / projects to independence

You can deal with depression - or you can deal with its consequences. We help motivated adults enjoy better relationships, plan their lives, exercise, and enjoy sleep and healthy diets. People facing alcohol or drug addiction can reach out to drug treatment hotlines for recovery programs and sober living.

Depression & Drugs

The manufacture and sale of anti-depressants is a multi-billion dollar industry. Although the most common anti-depressants may be alcohol and nicotine, trying to manage depression with prescription psychoactive drugs can have consequences worse than depression. Many anti-depressants are addictive and have unpleasant side effects, especially with older clients.

The more expensive anti-depressant drugs are SSRI - selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as Zoloft, Prozac or Paxil. These drugs increase serotonin in the brain. (Many older and cheaper anti-depressants are MAOI or MonoAmine Oxidase inhibitors, with worse side effects. MAO inhibitors such as Nardil, Parnate and Marplan may be prescribed if other medications don't manage depression.)

Symptoms of Depression

Depressed people often describe unpleasant moods, thoughts and self-perception. A depressed person may have difficulty making decisions - the day-to-day tasks of paying bills, caring for children, meeting people and making telephone calls may seem overwhelming.

If the following symptoms are present each day for a few weeks; and interfere with daily chores such as work, self-care, child-care, sleep or social life; please consider finding professional help:

  • Preoccupied with death or suicide
  • Insomnia and/or major sleep changes
  • Appetite and/or major weight changes
  • Decreased energy, fatigue - always tired
  • Feeling hopeless, helpless or pessimistic
  • Feeling guilt, worthlessness, helplessness
  • Loss of interest or pleasure in work or profession
  • Little pleasure in activities that were once enjoyed
  • Sadness, anxiety, emptiness, restless and irritable

  • Little interest or pleasure in romance or sexual activity

  • Difficulty concentrating, remembering, making decisions

Depression, Disease & Guilt

In my experience, most depression seems to be a healthy response to an unhealthy environment and/or unhealthy relationships. People at higher risk of chronic depression include those suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, codependence or mental illness. Common issues underlying chronic depression are guilt and shame, which can result if you:

  • abused, traumatized or tortured someone
  • were abused by someone but you blame yourself
  • blame yourself for some misfortune to yourself or to others
  • betrayed or abandoned someone important (violating trust, e.g. abandoning a child)
  • mistake one person for another (e.g. perceiving an ex-partner as an abandoned child)

Managing Guilt & Shame

If people try to withhold emotions, sooner or later they will express them. Depression often seems to result from withholding guilt. This guilt may reflect regret for abuse, abandonment, betrayal, etc - or guilt may be a result of transference, such as parental alienation (PAS), sexual abuse or emotional incest.

We find that guilt and shame are often expressed as depression, and, if unresolved, may result in nervous breakdown or suicide attempts. Long-term solutions require that people who have hurt others clarify and balance this hurt, and/or that they change any relationship entanglements. (See emotional maturity.) People facing alcoholism or drug related depression can seek an alcohol rehab center to gain sobriety and overcome the addiction.

Many people seem to try to control guilt and depression with distractions (TV, sex, gambling, etc), psychoactive medications (including nicotine, alcohol and caffeine) and dissociation (withdrawal, self-hypnosis and meditation). Such emotional control is usually short-term; continued use of drugs or other distractions may result in obsessions and addictions - without resolving the underlying depression.

Electroconvulsive Therapy (Electroshock - ECT)

Electroconvulsive therapy is passing an electric current through a human brain to cause a convulsion. Electroshock is used on people with depression, mania and sometimes schizophrenia, especially people who do not respond well to, or abreact to, medication. (I see ECT as an attempt to delete difficult memories rather than assimilate them ... Martyn).

The side effects of ECT include electrocution, brain damage, nausea and headaches, memory loss, distractibility, difficulty with multiple tasks, trouble with arithmetic and language. See Electroshock.

Lasting Solutions for Depression: Wisdom & Integrity

Intelligence is not wisdom. Intelligent people may become depressed if they cannot find effective solutions for problems that less intelligent people do not perceive. We help motivated adults evaluate their emotions, explore their relationships and develop their emotional maturity.

Would you like to benefit from our experience?

Copyright © 2001-2010 by Martyn Carruthers. All rights reserved.



 

 

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America: Dragonfly, PO Box 675, Honaunau, Hawaii, 96726 USA
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: Centar Angel, Trnsko 13A, 10020 Zagreb, Croatia
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Workshop

Systemic Coach Training

Systems 1 How to evaluate relationships and recognize common entanglements
Systems 2 How to define life goals, and identify blocks, objections & conflicts
Systems 3 How to continue goalwork using interactive metaphors and Dreamwork
Systems 4 How to dissolve the consequences of abuse and trauma and rebuild motivation
Systems 5 How to change limiting beliefs and codependence for emotional freedom
Systems 6 How to recognize and resolve identity loss: recover lost qualities and lost skills
Systems 7 How to heal therapist or spiritual damage and provide inspirational mentorship
Systems 8 How to coach partners to build lasting happiness (and to separate peacefully)
Systems 9 How to coach parents to resolve family problems
Systems 10 How to coach team leaders and teams ... together
Systems 11 How to coach community leaders and communities
Specialty Advanced workshops and specialty training tailored to your goals

Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 1996-2010 All rights reserved. Soulwork Systemic Coaching was primarily developed by Martyn Carruthers. We coach and train people to define and achieve goals, to resolve emotional blocks and to improve relationships. This information is for your general knowledge only. Please consult a physician about medical conditions and before changing any medical treatment. You must get Martyn's written permission to post or publish his work.