today we're going to be talking about cognitive behavioral therapy for depression
how it works and why this form of therapy is so effective for managing depression
hi everyone depression is one of the most common mental health conditions and the number one cause
of disability in the world but how do you treat depression how what are some of the
things that we can do to make depression better in today's video i'm going to be talking about
cognitive behavioral therapy or cbt which is one of the most effective treatments for depression
i'm going to be explaining how it works to manage depression symptoms and give you a better
understanding of a model or a cognitive behavioral model for how therapy works to address depression
but before i get into that just a couple of disclaimers to go over
i'm a registered psychologist in the province of british columbia canada and this video is for
informational purposes only it is not intended as a substitute or replacement for advice from
your doctor or mental health professional now with those things out of the way let's start
talking about cognitive behavioral therapy for depression now you may have heard of cbt
but for a lot of people they don't really know what it is it's a very popular form of therapy
but for many they've heard of it but aren't really sure exactly what cbt is now i've done a previous
video discussing some of the characteristics and principles of cognitive behavioral therapy
and so if you want to know more about what cbt is what it looks like i encourage you to take a look
at that video as well now to understand cognitive behavioral therapy for depression
i want you to think about human experience as consisting of three main components your behaviors
your thoughts and your emotions what you do how you think and how you feel
and i want you to think about these three components is all interconnected kind of like
the three sides of a triangle now usually when people come to see me for therapy for depression
they're usually experiencing problems with emotions i feel depressed i feel sad i feel empty
but depression is a lot more than just emotion imagine being depressed what impact does that have
on your behavior if you're feeling depressed what do you want to do maybe stay in bed
not get dressed don't want to go out and get exercise don't do the dishes well
if i'm behaving in that way what impact does that have on how i think about myself my life my future
well i've been lying in bed all day i've accomplished nothing it's been a
complete waste of a day i'm contributing nothing to my family i'm a total loser
well if i'm thinking that way what does that do to how i feel well i
probably feel worse my mood goes down the emotion side of the triangle gets worse and now i'm even
less motivated and less interested in doing things now this also works the other way around
if i'm feeling depressed if i'm feeling down and sad and blue what am i more likely to think about
well we know that when people are depressed they tend to think in more negative ways
what's the point in trying it's not going to work out anyways
my life's a mess no one would want to be with me i'll never succeed at anything i do
we also know that depressed mood makes it harder for people to remember
positive memories or successes that they've had in their lives so when a
person's feeling depressed when they're feeling down they're much more easily able to access
negative memories or thoughts of failures thoughts of mistakes and regrets that they've had and so
i'm feeling depressed and i'm thinking about all of these negative things i'm thinking negatively
about myself i'm thinking negatively about my life i'm thinking negatively about my future
well what impact do you think that's going to have on my motivation to do anything
well i'm probably not going to feel like doing anything because it won't work out
i won't enjoy it it'll be really uncomfortable so i don't engage in anything and as a result
i'm not getting the rewards of feeling like i'm succeeding and
i'm not getting the rewards the intrinsic rewards out of engaging in fun or social activities
so the way of thinking about depression is that it's kind of this series of negative
of ongoing negative spirals that just kind of drive mood further and further down
my mood is depressed i don't feel like doing much i think negatively about myself makes me feel
more depressed my mood is depressed i think really negatively about myself i don't do
anything as a result i don't get the rewards out of doing those things i feel more depressed
so how do we break out of these negative spirals how do we break out of these cycles well the key
is to think about which sides of the triangle you have some control over what parts of this cycle
can you change well can you control emotion can you just change feeling depressed if we could
we would always just choose to be happy we just hit the happy button on our arm and just always be
happy and you've probably had well-meaning people in your life tell you oh you just need to cheer up
the problem is if i could just cheer up i would we don't have direct control over our emotions
but what about the other sides of the triangle can you control your behavior
suppose i asked you to get up and go for a five minute walk could you do that well dude
probably you do have some control over your behavior now you may not want to you may not
feel like going for a five minute walk but you do have control over being able to do that
what about the thoughts side of the triangle suppose i asked you to try and think about a
situation differently for five minutes could you do that well it might be a bit more challenging
than just mindlessly changing behavior but we do know that people to some extent have an ability
to control and change how they think but what if i asked you to feel happy for five minutes
could you do that now sometimes when i ask my clients this question they'll say yeah
i i can make myself happy for five minutes and so i ask okay well how would you do that
and usually the response i get is something like well i i think about positive things in my life i
may call a friend i may look at pictures of happy memories or happy moments i've had in the past
but notice that's not directly changing the emotion it's getting at the emotion
by changing behaviors and changing thoughts now imagine the following scenario
i wake up in the morning but rather than what i've been doing for the last few weeks which is
staying in bed not getting up i get out of bed i get up i have a shower i get dressed for the day
and maybe that's all i do in the day so my thinking would be and i may say to myself or
the depression may say to me that i didn't accomplish much today but then i'd be able
to say to myself well at least i got up at least i showered and at least i got dressed
so by doing those things maybe i won't feel as down as i would have if i as i would have felt
if i'd stayed in bed all day so notice making that behavior change changes how i think about my day
and in doing so it may make me feel even just a little bit better or a little bit not worse
and that's how cognitive behavioral therapy works for depression
it's about making behavior change and thought change to indirectly get at changing how you feel
because you can't change your feelings directly but you can change what you're doing and you can
change how you're thinking and by changing those things you can indirectly improve
how you feel now i've done a number of videos on how to change behavior and ways of changing
thinking in depression and that's all part of this cbt approach i'm a cbt therapist so pretty much
everything i'm talking about in these videos is all based in cognitive behavioral therapy
so if you're interested in learning more about cbt techniques and ways of changing
behavior and ways of changing thinking to indirectly get at improving how you feel
i encourage you to check out those videos i've got a depression playlist so i'd
encourage you to check out the depression videos playlist if you want to know more about this
so i hope that gives you a bit more of background on how cognitive behavioral
therapy works and how it can break these negative spirals that keep depression going
so that's all for today's video i'd love to hear your thoughts and comments about this
so please leave me some comments or questions in the comments section down below if you've
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thank you for making it all the way to the end of this video and i will see you in the next one