18/04/2025
I’ve been telling this to clients, students, friends (and anyone who will listen!) for a long time now - the still widely held belief that depression is caused my a chemical imbalance in the brain is bo****ks. Bo****ks that the bio-medical model and pharmaceutical industry hold onto tightly, but bo****ks nevertheless.
Depression is complex, with roots that spread far and wide across a range of interacting bio-psycho-social and existential factors.
✨ For many it is rooted in ignoring or disassociating from our feelings and needs, not living our lives in a way that feels authentic or in alignment with our values and who we really are, not expressing our creativity or some important part of ourselves that needs to be expressed.
✨ For some it has, at its core, a profound sense of unworthiness, inadequacy, unbelonging and even self-hatred.
✨ For some it is rooted in existential concerns about the meaning and purpose of our lives as we grapple with the brevity and seeming pointlessness of existence.
✨ For some it is born of unresolved trauma or life-changing grief. For some, that trauma is ancestral and inter generational, living in the cells of our bodies.
✨ For some it is born of disconnection, isolation and loneliness, being starved of human connection, touch, togetherness, belonging and community in an individualistic society.
✨ For some it is natural response to living under a colonial, capitalistic patriarchal, white supremist society that exploits and dehumanises us, reducing us to consumers.
✨ For some, depression naturally rises as a very human response to conflict and genocide being live steamed into our homes whilst the planet burns and a dangerous narcissist takes the helm of the worlds biggest superpower, tearing up the rule book with wide reaching consequences globally.
✨ For some it is a natural response to the poverty and struggle of their daily lives, especially for those from historically oppressed and marginalised groups.
Anti-depressants numb the most painful feelings and might allow someone to function, to go to work, raise their children and even to engage with other things that might actually help. So I’m not knocking them, they have a place. I’ve used them before myself and would again if I really needed to. But they would be a last resort for me.
Why? Because they don’t just numb painful feelings, they numb our experience of joy, of gratitude, of connection, the things that make us human. Plus, they mask rather than address the core issues. And, some research suggests they don’t tend to work beyond 12 months anyway.
What actually helps?
We’re all unique and different things help different people. But generalising from my own personal experience as somebody vulnerable to depression and from my experience Counselling hundreds of others with depression for over a decade:
✨ Counselling / Psychotherapy that is emotion-focused, experiential, process-orientated, relational and somatic I.e. not the 6 session, manualised CBT offered by the NHS or other superficial, short term, goal-orientated approaches, but ‘depth therapies’ that give clients time, space and safety to explore who they are, find the wisdom in their pain and unleash the innate growth forces that lie within
✨Self-Acceptance, ‘unshaming’ and unpathologising ourselves, accepting who we are, our feelings and needs as valid, forming a healthier relationship with ourselves, overcoming the inner critic and forming more compassionate and empowering beliefs about ourselves
✨ Lifestyle - Sleep, Exercise, Rest & Nutrition form the foundation of our wellbeing, physically and mentally. No amount of deep therapy will help us feel good if we’re surviving on 4 hours sleep, under constant stress and fuelling ourselves on maccies and sausage rolls!
✨Connection and community - we are social beings, we are supposed to live in tribes, villages, communities, to share the load of this life. But we are living in the age of loneliness and disconnection.
✨ Meaning, Purpose & Vision - I feel that many of us need a sense of meaning and purpose in our life, and/or a vision - something we are working towards, a reason to get out of bed in the morning. For some this is found in creativity, for others a social cause or passion, for some in religion or spirituality and for others in parenthood. The common thread being that it is usually about something bigger than ourselves, whatever that might be - a selfish, individualistic life is not a happy one.
✨ Self-expression, Creativity and Culture - I believe creativity is a human quality or drive we all possess, not just those of us who identify as ‘creatives’, artists or musicians. Art, music and culture enhance life, bring catharsis and cultivate joy.
✨ Mindfulness & Gratitude - cultivating present-moment awareness, living in the here and now, connected to our senses and appreciating our lives moment to moment is a game changer, it allows us to ‘lose ourselves’ in the moment to moment experience of being alive, those moments that make life worth living.
✨ Non-Consumerist / Minimalist living - striving to be a human being rather than a consumer, to live more simply, centring experiences and the moments that matter over accumulating things. The less stuff we buy, the less we have to work and the more time we have to focus on the things that matter.
✨ Nature & living more naturally - being around nature is naturally soothing, healing and balancing. I’ve also become convinced that a large part of our stress and ‘mental health’ struggles are down to living very artificial, unnatural, plastic lives that are very disconnected from how we are supposed to live…
The concrete towns and cities, the constant entertainment, stimulation and distraction, the screen time, always being advertised to and manipulated to consume, the individualism, the disconnection from the natural environment and its seasons and rhythms, not to mention our bodies and their own seasons and rhythms. In my experience, the more we make our lives natural again, connecting with nature and our bodies, the greater our wellbeing.
I’m not for a moment suggesting a one-size-fits-all solution for depression, but these are some of the areas that stand out to me as being worthy of exploration.
Anti-depressants might be part of the solution for some, but only by digging deeper and addressing the root causes rather than masking them can we really heal
