K Unfortunately, the majority of people suffering from depression are not aware of the fact that they are sick and therefore do not consider it necessary to seek medical help for depression and tormented by the question: how to get rid of depression?
How to effectively treat depression, today many people in the street do not know. However, they are not the only ones concerned about the treatment of the first signs of depression . Effective help with depression remains an urgent task not only for psychiatrists, but also for psychotherapists. For successful treatment of depression is necessary to include in itself a biological therapy, psychotherapy , and a system of social measures aimed at improving the status of the patient.
Spontaneous recovery in a protracted course of depression is quite rare and accounts for about 10% of all its cases, and the return of depression occurs over the next 2-4 years.
The effectiveness of treatment for depression depends on its clinical presentation and the adequacy of therapeutic interventions. Biological treatments for depression primarily include pharmacological therapy. At the same time, for the biological treatment of depression, the following can be used: electroconvulsive therapy, sleep deprivation, phototherapy, diet therapy, herbal therapy, efferent sorption techniques and other biological methods of influencing the body of a sick person. Among the medications for the treatment of depression, antidepressants are most often used , however, in the process of treating this disease, other drugs are also used : tranquilizers, antipsychotics, vitamins, hormones, antioxidants, lithium salts, medicines that improve the metabolism of brain cells, affect the immune system and other drugs funds. It should be noted that antidepressants can also be effective in treating anxiety, fear, obsessive compulsions, migraines, bulimia, vegetative crises, and even in the elimination of pain of various origins, since antidepressants usually increase the threshold for pain sensitivity. Treating signs of depression can be done with psychotherapy. To get rid of depression, patients themselves seek this form of medical and psychological help. For a long time, a patient with depression does not dare to resort to taking medications, and having started taking antidepressants, he often quickly stops drug treatment for depression.
The Role of Psychotherapy in Treating Depression
In virtue of helplessness and constant doubts, patients are usually suggestible and reading annotations on those or other drugs, they easily find by themselves side effects already in the first days of treatment. In addition, patients suffering from depression have functional disorders of the internal organs and , therefore, are really sensitive to the side effects of drugs. Many sufferers experience false alarms about constant dependence on antidepressants. A significant proportion of patients suffering from depression belong to placebo – reactors, i.e. people who easily react to taking even “empty pills” that do not contain any active medicinal substance at all. All of the above determines the increased interest of such patients in psychotherapy for depression.
Experimental data suggesting the importance of psychological factors in the formation of the therapeutic resistance of depression to drugs are a serious argument for the role of psychotherapy in the treatment of depression . An effective course of psychotherapy is arguably more beneficial in the long term than pharmacotherapy because it educates the patient. The latter acquires the skills to overcome depression, learns to recognize its approach, to prevent the development of its relapse. As the results of many studies have shown, the normalization of endocrine parameters in the course of depression therapy is achieved not only during treatment with antidepressants, but also during psychotherapy. Moreover, the effect of psychotherapy on endocrine indicators is observed both in the case of its combination with psychopharmacological therapy, and in the case of using it as the only method of treatment.
In some cases, psychotherapy enables patients to adapt to real life. Possessing an independent therapeutic effect, psychotherapy promotes optimal cooperation between the patient and the doctor, increases the effectiveness of drug treatment, improves family relations and the patient’s professional status.
The frequent onset of depression after an acute trauma or prolonged state of stress leads to a persistent search for the psychological causes of its occurrence. This circumstance enhances the desire of patients for psychological help with depression. However, an excessive overestimation of its capabilities, unfortunately, can lead to a complete rejection of psychotropic drugs, the formation of resistant and protracted variants of the course of depression, the emergence of its early exacerbations. The question of how to treat depression remains open to the patient.
From the point of view of the doctor, psychotherapy for depression should be primarily aimed at eliminating the signs of depression. Some of them are more sensitive to psychotherapy, others are relatively difficult to respond to its influence. It is generally accepted that in severe depression, the possibilities of psychotherapy are more limited than in mild cases of the disease. In as targets of psychotherapy in treating depression distinguish mood disorders, thinking, behavior, motivation and physiological symptoms. Among the affective symptoms – sadness, guilt and shame, and especially anxiety are especially sensitive to psychotherapeutic effects.