Depression

Innner healing
for times of darkness

Introduction

In October 2012, the World Health Organization reported that over 350 million people worldwide suffer from depression. While everybody experiences down moods and sadness from time to time, it is when the feelings of sadness are prolonged (at least 2 weeks or more) and interfere with a person's ability to function in life that depression is likely present. Unfortunately, due to the unwarranted stigma surrounding depression, many people with depression either do not seek help or don't acknowledge they are suffering depression.

Depression is treatable. Mainstream treatment options for depression are medication and psychotherapy, used separately or together. Medication aims to treat depression by altering the biochemistry of the brain. Psychotherapy is aimed at improving mental and cognitive functioning to help treat depression. And there are complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) options available as well, such as holistic methods that broaden and expand the framework and understanding of depression to include the person's whole self in the healing process.

Unless you have experienced depression, it is hard to understand how powerful the effects of depression are. Especially difficult is when a spouse, family, or friends tells the depressed person, "It's not that bad. Things will get better; just think more positive thoughts." Although well intended, anyone who has been in depression knows very well that such words do nothing to touch the deep inner sense of despair that accompanies depression. And the stigma surrounding depression only makes the condition worse. Instead of reaching out for support and finding close ones to talk to, the depressed person shuts down further, internalizing the sadness deeper and compounding it with shame, guilt, or feelings of being "selfish" due to their difficulty to perform their roles in life.

Program overview

The holistic program for depression Mark offers is used to complement mainstream treatment options. It is also frequently turned to when medication and psychotherapy come up short. This program views depression in a fundamentally different way than most treatment programs. Instead of focusing on eliminating the symptoms of depression and viewing depression as a problem that must be banished, the client is guided through their own individual process of inner healing, change, and transformation. From this perspective, depression serves as a vehicle for transformation that leads the individual to deeper understanding, meaning, and purpose in their life.

When depression is present, a deep process is at work within the psyche—a process that reaches far deeper than the conscious mind's ability to comprehend, much less control. The pain and suffering that accompany depression are often intensified when the inner transformation process at work is denied by treatment methods that don't acknowledge these deeper, more far-reaching levels of Self. With courage, support, and guidance, the person experiencing depression has the opportunity to discover the doorway within that opens to a whole new experience of themselves and a deeper understanding of their life.

A person's experience of depression is intimately personal, unique to him or her. Moving through depression can and does support individual growth and development in the most powerful of ways. One problem with standardized treatment is that it often focuses so much on trying to reduce the generic symptoms of depression that the individual's deeper process of change and transformation is dismissed or entirely ignored altogether. Instead of helping the individual move through their deep inner process of change, traditional treatments tend to focus on minimizing the symptoms of depression so the person can get back to the way things were. From a holistic perspective, this is a real disservice to the client. Very often, when the inner change process is denied and even when it appears the symptoms have gone away, depression is likely to show up later in the person's life, usually in a more difficult and constellated form. It then becomes harder to block or suppress the symptoms and the individual is left with an even bigger task on their hands to heal themselves. Depression is not intent on destroying a person or their life. If you or a loved one is suffering depression, it is helpful to know and recognize there is a deeper process at work. The deeper process that accompanies depression can be ignored, or you can use this time in your life to heal and clear the inner darkness that blocks the light of knowing just how deeply special you and your life truly are.

Program highlights

• Move through inner darkness, sadness, pain, and despair.
• Minimize the effects of depression by accelerating the inner healing process.
• Utilize color, sound, art, myth, storytelling, and guided imagery to clear non-supportive patterns.
• Establish inner clarity, peace, and unconditional acceptance.
• Recognize and detach from negative thought patterns.
• Increase self-awareness and self-understanding.
• Receive support, guidance, and direction on how to work with your whole-self to accelerate and experience healing.
• Free yourself of guilt, anger, and shame.
• Explore and attune yourself to the natural cycles and rhythms of your life.
• Cultivate enjoyment and enthusiasm free of attachment to outer forms.
• Increase inner distance and space between yourself and the depression.
• Find a new, deeper sense of meaning and purpose to your life.
• Includes archetypal, alchemical, and energetic healing techniques.
• Effectively used to complement psychotherapy, psychiatry, and other forms of depression treatment.

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* Note: Specific results are not guaranteed as results may vary from person to person.