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cognitive behaviour therapy(cbt) and depression

usually when you are depressed a self Strengthening cycle is formed that elevates the depression levels, this cycle starts by any external event that happens like failing an exam, which then turns into any thought like thinking that you are a failure, and then turns into a feeling of being down which is then reflected into your behaviour,for example you may stop studying because you are down and so fail the next exam too. this cycle results in reinforcing the cycle of depression.

breaking the depression cycle

when using CBT with depression your goal will breaking this cycle of thoughts---> feelings ----> behavior , if you can break this cycle any where in its middle you will stop it's self reinforcing effect and so your rational thinking can take over to restore you to your normal condition. the following are examples of how to break this cycle:

changing your depressing thoughts

changing the thoughts: changing the thoughts involves changing all irrational ideas that we did mention like overgeneralization, perfectionism , labeling ...etc. for example if your friend didn't invite you to his birthday, that should not make you think that you are worthless maybe,just think of it, maybe he tried to call you but your mobile was out of reach,if you did fail an exam that doesn't mean that you are a loser maybe you just didn't focus on the important parts while studying , and if you missed a goal that doesn't mean that the world is over you can still start again.

although changing your thoughts seems like an easy task still it becomes a little harder when you are depressed because the depression tends to make you see everything from the negative perspective, however its still worthy to do your best to fix your irrational thinking patterns because that may be your entry point to breaking the cycle.

changing the behaviour that Reinforces depression

changing your behavior: taking the first example of failing the exam, if you were to pull yourself together and study again you may have not failed the next exam and so your depressive thoughts may have not become stronger because it will find nothing to trigger it. This will break the cycle too but in a different stage, because if you did succeed you wont have any proof to support your idea of being a failure. people who are depressed usually start to avoid social activates which helps to enforce their idea of being lonely and not being cared for,as their absence of social activities tend to make them forgotten and so rarely someone contacts them, by restoring back social activities they may start to make new friends and so break the cycle by proofing that their ideas where irrational .

for a depressed person doing some kind of activity that requires energy is really hard because usually the depressed person lacks energy, that's why you should start to do more of what you like and less of what you don't like, off course you aren't going to enjoy the actives that you used to like before being depressed the same way that you are going to enjoy them while being depressed but at least you will be away from what you don't like.

off course you may not be able to avoided some of the activities that you don't like, like in the case of not liking your work, but at least you should not work overtime if this was your case instead you can do one of your favorite activities like having a walk or going to a movie.once you have broken the cycle , your feelings are going to be more stable, and there is where you can start to set goals to return back to your previous state and work towards solving some of your problems that are within your reach.

final words

the main idea behind getting rid of depression using CBT is finding anywhere were you can break the cycle and breaking it. after breaking the cycle the self enforcing effect will disappear and that will give you some room to breath and to think rationaly in order to get out of your depression.

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did that help?

yes, but i want to know more about CBT

i want to know more about depression

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