Depression in adults: what it is and how it is treated in psychological therapy

Depression is a mood disorder that manifests itself differently depending on the age of the person, as it conditions many of our habits and characteristics. In this article we will see what depression is like in adults and how it can be treated with the help of professionals.

And precisely because this psychological disorder is expressed through our ability to enjoy life, its symptoms are manifest differently depending on the age of the person, as this conditions many of our habits and features. In this article we will see what depression is like in adults and how it can be treated with the help of professionals.

• Related article: "The 6 types of mood disorders"

What is depression like in adults?

Depression in adults is a relatively common mood disorder, and in fact it is estimated that it affects about 200 million people around the world.

The symptoms, among many others, by which it is characterized are basically apathy (extreme lack of motivation and lack of energy to do most of daily activities necessary to live well, such as cooking, showering, going to work, etc.), anhedonia (inability to experience pleasure) and an intense feeling of sadness, melancholy or hopelessness.

What's more, the adult population is more flexible when it comes to finding strategies to communicate what they feel, so that age also brings diversity in the way of verbalizing the problem and explaining it to friends, family and mental health professionals.

Help from psychologists: treating depression in adults

These are some of the main strategies psychologists use to conduct psychotherapy for depression in adults.

1. Act on ideas and behavior patterns

Psychology centers with a more effective approach to treating depression in adults use tools that allow intervention in both the way in which the patient perceives and interprets reality, as in the set of actions that he usually uses to interact with the environment and with the rest.

For example, The Psychomaster psychology center, located in the center of Madrid, uses various types of related therapy that allow to do this: Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and EMDR.

The first is one of the most used ways in psychotherapy to intervene in many mental disorders, and it focuses on a double path of improvement: help the person learn healthier and more useful behavior patterns so as not to reinforce the presence of the mental disorder by interacting with what surrounds us, and to modify ideas and beliefs strongly rooted in the patient and that prevent him from perceiving reality in a constructive and emotionally balanced way.

On the other hand, when in Psychomaster they use Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, the objective is also to influence actions and thoughts and beliefs, but adapting treatment to the context in which each individual patient lives and helping you to accept the imperfection of many aspects of life and what it means to exist in it, in a way that contributes to change what can be solved and learn to embrace imperfections that cannot be changed or do not depend on U.S.

In this way, ways of thinking, feeling and acting are unlearned that cause a and again the symptoms of depression in adults, and learn other habits that allow you to live better.

• You may be interested: "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): principles and characteristics"

2. Patient activation

It is very important that the adult patient leaves the dynamics of passivity and sedentary life habits in which she has settled because of depression. For this reason, it is often used a set of strategies called Behavioral Activation, which aims to create the situations and contexts necessary for the patient to engage in stimulating activities and with the ability to involve the whole body.

The idea here is not to have blind faith in the willpower of the person and hope that the motivation will serve to mobilize them and dedicate themselves to hobbies, but to do something so that the patient is more exposed to stimulating situations with the ability to generate interest and make them get hooked ”on a task or set of tasks: going out to the park to play sports, taking care of a garden, walking unfamiliar areas of the city, etc.

3. I work with the family and the close circle

Another of the courses of action that are undertaken in specialized centers such as Psicomaster has to do with networking with the patient's family and close environment. As much as the person affected by depression in adults has already left childhood behind, the role of their loved ones is still very relevant, among other things because the disorder itself causes you to lose autonomy.

The fact that psychologists coordinate with the family of patients helps those who experience depression in the first person continue to have support and an action guide once they have left the consultation, between psychotherapy sessions and psychotherapy.

Thus, specialists inform families about how to live with an adult with depression, how to treat the presence of the pathology in conversations, what kind of actions to follow to encourage the person to keep moving and get involved in relationships with others, etc.

4. Intervention on anxiety centers

It is very common that depression in adults does not appear in isolation, but arises at the same time as other harmful psychological disorders. Anxiety disorders and the experience of psychological trauma are part of the most frequent psychological phenomena that are overlap with extremely low mood, and often the one causing depression has to do with these other problems.

Therefore, in well-equipped psychology centers such as Psicomaster, there are professionals who are experts in treating all these types of disorders that overlap each other. For example, if depression is linked to psychological trauma, EMDR therapy can be used or systematic desensitization to make the source of discomfort by which the trauma manifests itself disappear, at the same time that it intervenes in the depression itself.

Conclution

Depression in adults is a complex mood disorder in the way it expresses itself in patients, and Due to its potential to erode people's quality of life or even encourage suicidal ideations, it deserves to be treated by professionals.

As much as we have been educated to assume that adult life is full of difficult moments and sacrifices, depression is a very serious condition that cannot be normalized. The sooner you act on detecting the first symptoms, the better.