When getting out of bed’s too hard — 5 best therapies for depression
You might feel like you’re wading in a murky pool of depression. Or worse, you’re about to go under. Sleeping a “normal” amount has become an issue. Getting up for appointments, meals, and plans is iffy. And maintaining relationships with family and friends wears you out. Keeping up with work and school…who knows how long you’ll be able to do that?
If you find that meeting basic obligations is too much, you may be struggling with depression. But luckily, today we have much more easily accessible tools to help us get past it. Soon, with a few changes, you could have a better and more productive life, one you look forward to each day.
The short answer
If you’re looking to heal from your depression, here are 5 therapies & programs you’ll want to check out:
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) — This therapy helps you to avoid common distortions or exaggerations in thinking so you can see possibilities and ways to cope. (jump to CBT)
- Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) IOP Program — A mix of individual and group therapy, this therapy is like CBT to a higher power. This therapy teaches you how to use coping skills and react to stressful situations. (jump to DBT)
- Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) — This is for you if you’re looking for a short-term approach because it involves frequent 1-on-1 meetings with your therapist, usually 8 to 15 meetings in all. (jump to IPT)
- EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) — Guided by your therapist, you’ll move your eyes in a specific pattern to re-process traumatizing event(s), without having to talk about the actual event(s). (jump to EMDR)
- “Walk and Talk” Therapy — You’ll have your therapy session while you walk outside with your therapist. (Jump to “walk and talk”)
Questions answered in this article:
- What’s depression like?
- What are the top 5 therapies for depression?
- What might my depression treatment plan look like?
- How often should I go to therapy if I have depression?
- What are my next steps?
What’s depression like?
When you suffer from depression, your world becomes skewed. Some people describe it as no longer viewing life the same way or feeling like yourself. Instead of pursuing opportunities, school, relationships, and hobbies, you may instead see them as challenging and feel unseen and disconnected from the world around you. And when depressed, you might find it difficult to even google your options for overcoming it. But programs that’ll help move the needle on your depression exist, and with the right professional guidance, you can find a treatment plan that works for you.
Effective treatments for depression do exist—here are the top 5 therapies for depression that we recommend
Therapists often use these approaches individually and together to help their clients manage their depression. Let’s look at each:
1. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
If you think of your mind like a garden, CBT helps you find and pull out the weeds (unproductive thoughts) to make more room for beautiful flowers, trees, herbs, and more (productive thoughts that are more comfortable to live with). (It teaches you how to plant those thoughts, too.)
CBT focuses on the relationship or interaction among your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. As you become aware of what is happening with these, you can modify it. As you do so, triggers diminish. With CBT you’ll be able to identify unhealthy or inaccurate thought patterns and replace them with alternative, more accurate thoughts.
In therapy, your therapist may suggest journaling so you can separate the mob of negative voices you may hear in your head. By writing them down, you’ll be able to see common patterns. This’ll help you feel more in control, and you’ll start to feel stronger. Soon, you’ll begin turning your thoughts into productive behaviors.
While CBT can be offered during individual therapy, we also include CBT psychoeducation and skills into our Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) group therapy sessions. Most people report seeing progress in their depressive symptoms within the first few weeks of IOP (this is also in part because IOP programs have multiple sessions a week instead of one session every other week).
2. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Think of a grocery cart with a wonky front wheel.
When you first try to push it, it’s really hard to control and goes all over the place. In DBT, overwhelming emotions are like the wonky wheel that pulls you in directions you don’t want to go, and logical thoughts and emotions are like the steady wheel that wants to help you move in the direction do want to go in. DBT shows you how to steer the cart in your desired direction even with a wonky wheel so you can move through different “aisles” in life without crashing into anything.
DBT was developed to help people suffering with chronic suicidality, emotional dysregulation, impulsivity and interpersonal difficulties, and it can be a faster path with some individuals seeing progress in 6 months to a year.
This therapy includes daily support, an introduction to new coping skills, and a combination of frequent individual and group therapy. It helps you build mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness by helping you embracing seemingly opposite ideas.
In DBT, your therapist teaches you to identify negative thought patterns and behaviors and shows you how to manage challenges and emotions in a healthy way.
If you’re going to therapy once a week, learning DBT skills can take about 6 months, but in our DBT IOP group that meets 4 times a week (it includes both group and individual therapy), you can learn all the skills within 8 weeks. Along with that, all of our DBT therapists are trauma informed to help you start healing difficult attachments.
3. Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT)
Remember those hilariously cringy old Cingular dropped call commercials?
Sometimes when we’re on the phone we lose signal, and our conversations get dropped at bad times. It causes the wrong message to go through to both parties.
With a focus on relationships, IPT’s like switching to a better carrier—it’ll pinpoint where your connection’s weak, where the message got lost, and it’ll help you improve the signal in those areas for better communication and more fulfilling relationships.
Sessions often occur 8 to 15 times with your therapist, once or more often a week. You’ll work to understand your emotions and their effect on your relationships. Medication may be prescribed at the same time. IPT is often used to treat major depressive disorders in adolescents and adults.
While we don’t offer IPT as a standalone approach to helping you through your mental health symptoms, it’s woven into all of our work in both group and individual therapy sessions.
4. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy)
EMDR’s incredible—it’s been more effective at treating trauma than Prozac.
How’s it work? According to the EMDRIA, you “focus briefly on the trauma memory while simultaneously experiencing bilateral stimulation (typically eye movements)”.
Think about driving in the rain. As raindrops fall on the windshield, the windshield wipers move back and forth to clean the glass so you can see clearly.
In EMDR, life’s challenges and traumas are like raindrops falling on a windshield, and bilateral stimulation is like the windshield wiper, wiping them away. Those movements help your brain clear up unproductive memories and thoughts so you can see life clearly again.
Because it’s so powerful, we include EMDR in our trauma programs, and we’ve also started offering Rapid Reset Sessions, which are individual EMDR sessions for when you need to process something quick but don’t have a lot of time to commit
5. “Walk and Talk” therapy
Some clinicians have started to provide “walk and talk” therapy, where you have your therapy sessions outdoors while walking. This has shown many benefits like increased energy and mood, enhanced creativity, and reduced anxiety.
What might my depression treatment plan look like?
Treatment plans for depression can include a combination of therapies such as intensive CBT and DBT therapy, medication, and the recommendation of yoga, art therapy, exercise, and other activities. You and your therapist will determine your best treatment plan.
If you work with one of our therapists, you’ll have a hand in determining the best treatment path for you. You may choose a single therapy or a combination to counter your depression, but we like to use mind-body techniques. Your therapist may prescribe medication alone or with the treatments above to address your symptoms of depression.
Depression isn’t one-size-fits all. Your treatment plan shouldn’t be either.
Just as people and their depression differs, their treatments should be unique also. You and your therapist should determine which mode of therapy is right for you at this time and adjust it as needed.
How often should I go to therapy if I have depression?
How often you meet with your therapist or therapy group depends on the type of treatment. IOP (Intensive Outpatient Therapy) is a therapy program you attend several times a week with others. Individual therapy can be once every two weeks, weekly or more frequently. Your therapist will make a recommendation on frequency and how often you meet may change over time.
What are my next steps?
If you’re ready to reclaim your life and start experiencing just how good it can get, you can contact us to book your consultation.
Here’s what you can expect from your sign up process:
- You’ll call in, and our admissions team will help you schedule your initial consultation within 48 hours
- During your in-person or virtual consultation, one of our therapists will help determine which program (or trusted partner) will be the best fit for you
- You’ll show up to your first session (probably a little freaked out, and that’s totally fine), listen to others’ stories, and start gaining tools you can apply that same day
Sanare Today is a mental health provider offering IOP, PHP, and outpatient therapy programs for adults dealing with childhood trauma, depression, anxiety, and more. We offer therapy in Philadelphia, PA; Wilmington, DE; Raleigh, NC and beyond.
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