welcome back to week eight of the week by week guide to depression treatment
i am your host dr dawn elise snipes
as always in-depth videos on each of the topics that we discuss and particularly grief and the
inner child today can be found at doc snipes dot com slash youtube so don't feel like you
are completely out of the loop with things if you don't understand a hundred percent about
what we're talking about this series is designed to just provide a framework that gives you an
example of what therapy might be like on a week by week basis if you're processing depression
for each person it's going to be a little bit different
but this is sort of the format that i start out with and then i tailor for each individual
week eight as always we're going to review your morning and evening mindfulness logs for your
pace or themes your physical affective cognitive environmental and relationship themes and sleep
trends if people are starting to show evidence of becoming physically run down not sleeping well
pessimism depression you know depending on the person it may be important to
take a hiatus or a break from processing some of the grief and losses for a week or two so
they can get their energy back it's important not to run yourself into the ground trying to
get through this and process it all there is no timetable and it's better a lot more effective
to do it mindfully to do it smartly i don't know that's not a word but i'm going to use it anyway
then to conti continue to plug along because that's what's on the schedule so it is important
to look at the themes and if you're starting to um feel run down or overwhelmed there is nothing
wrong there is no shame in taking a rest taking a break from doing this because it is hard work
we'll explore any meditation and distress tolerance skills that are working for you
again just to keep those in the forefront of your mind so when you are experiencing distress they're
kind of on the tip of your tongue we'll review the progress and trends in baseline data for
your top three symptoms and this again is an indication about whether it you're doing well
and can continue progressing or whether you may need to take a break and regroup
and allow your body and your brain to heal from the traumas that it's gone through it's exhausting
we'll review your cognitive distortion worksheets and identify themes and discuss the loss that you
began processing exploring how that loss is currently impacting you in the present
we're going to continue processing grief using the questions from week six from henceforth
uh for a lot of people this is an ongoing self-directed process that is we're going to
move on to processing trauma and some other things in session and you're going to be
empowered to continue processing your grief issues on your own now that doesn't mean we
can't talk about them in session it just means it won't be a focus obsession you're also going
to learn about the wounded inner child by watching the video healing the wounded inner child on the
youtube channel so you can start understanding how things that happened when you were a child
may still be kind of stored in your memory banks and continuing to impact you today because
many times when we experience a trauma when we experience a loss especially as children
we don't know how to deal with it and so that issue that trauma gets stored
in the way that the child remembers it so it's it's stored as an eight-year-old memory for
example if it happened when you were eight years old as it comes out it's going to come out as
an eight-year-old may express it so it's important to understand that that inner
child is representative of the memories that you stored when you were that age
we'll explore how your reactions to things that remind you of past traumas might be your inner
child re-emerging so when things in the present remind you of past traumas and you throw a temper
tantrum for example how might that be your inner child starting to to re-emerge and what can you do
to help that inner child feel protected and a lot of people say i don't know and my response is
if if you had a child right now who was experiencing this trauma
what would you do to help that child feel safe ultimately and this is a
kind of esoteric concept but ultimately the adult you is now responsible for protecting that
inner child so you're going to have to ultimately sort of re-parent that inner child
and and you'll understand a lot more once you read or watch the video healing the inner
child but it's important to think to yourself when you start feeling vulnerable for example
what would a parent do what could a parent do to help a child who is feeling vulnerable
feel safe and protected how does that child know that their parent has their back
and you need to start doing that for yourself you need to start being consistently
empathetic and responsive to your own inner needs and recognizing that
you're safe now in the present because as an adult you have skills tools and abilities
that you may not have had probably didn't have back then when you were a a small child
as always you're going to continue your mindfulness worksheets your baseline
data collection your happiness breaks at lunch monitoring your thoughts for cognitive distortions
and completing the cognitive distortions worksheet at least one a week you're also going to continue
processing at least one loss or group of losses so you're going to continue to do that
and then you're going to watch that video on healing the inner child this week so this week
you know we're wrapping up that final in session grief processing and you're
empowered to continue to do that on your own but i'm not adding a lot of extra stuff
because processing grief takes a lot of energy and takes a lot of time