What Lifts Depression Fast?

why understanding it is key to recovery

I had a new client yesterday who was nervous that our therapy would take the form of her talking, and probably crying, week after week, about all the miserable things that had happened and were still happening in her life.

I reassured her that this was not the way I worked. (Indeed, we human givens practitioners only ever book up session by session, because change can take place surprisingly fast.) It reminded me, however, of the time when I was contacted a few years ago by a young woman I’ll call Julia. She told me that she had been seeing a therapist for anxiety and depression every week for seven years. It was her next sentence that has always stuck in my mind: ‘And I’m starting to think that I am not getting any better.’

I told her that she was welcome to try the human givens approach, but that she would not be able to do both. She decided to try a session.

On arrival, she could hardly sit still and, indeed, she perched on the very edge of her chair, literally wringing her hands. She told me that she couldn’t control her racing thoughts and woke every day with a heavy, dead feeling in the pit of her stomach, which persisted all day. She was very quickly in tears and, when I expressed concern, was surprised because, she said, she always cried during therapy.

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