Depression Counseling in Woodstock, IL.

Depression is an energy disorder, a thief of enjoyment, accomplishment, connection with others, and self-care. It comes in many forms and facades. You can feel helpless not being able to change your feelings. Depression can be scary and cannot be reasoned away. I can help you identify, understand and regulate difficult emotions, and find a workable plan to address how difficult it can be.

Symptoms of Depression: Withdrawal, inappropriate guilt, overwhelming self-doubt, unwarranted pessimism, inappropriate irritability, unwarranted weight gain or weight loss, dysfunctional use of drugs or alcohol, over-sleeping or under-sleeping, inappropriate deficiency in energy, excessive lethargy and abnormally unpleasant mood. Depression Treatment: Re-structuring of psychological perspective, cognitive-behavioral therapy, dialectal behavior therapy, drama-response extinction, re-framing of catastrophic predictions, anti-depressants, narrative therapy and state-of-the-art self-hypnosis. Benefits of Treatment: Rapid enhancement of mood, increased optimism, more energy, reduced fatigue.

Feeling depressed is one of the hardest emotions to deal with--especially if you have been suffering with it for a long time. Know that there is always hope for feeling better. First, I will closely listen to your story, and assist you in identifying what is contributing to your depression. Then I will recommend helpful resources to use, and begin to equip you with skills that will improve your mood and foster a growing sense of well-being.

People suffering from depression have more negative thoughts about themselves, the world, and the future. Those who are depressed also tend to feel more helpless, hopeless and worthless. Research with depressed individuals suggests that treatment focusing on changing peoples’ thought (cogntive behavioral therapy) is a particularly effective treatment for depression. CBT as part of a comprehensive treatment plan is a very effective approach to treating depression.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has been identified as the treatment of choice for depression. Whether you are on medication or not, CBT strategies can offer relief from the heavy weight of depressive symptoms. Kari's clients gain an understanding of what makes someone vulnerable to depression, how to increase motivation, energy, and positive mood. They will learn how to react to difficult situations with control and composure and better combat depressive tendencies in the future. Because teens display depression differently than adults, parents are often unsure about their son/daughter. Kari will provide an assessment and if necessary, a plan for effective treatment.

We provide a safe place to explore and change the destructive thoughts and behaviors that can fuel depression. We will use a grace based approach to find positive and healthy solutions to manage your overwhelming feelings so that you can find freedom from shame based cycles. We will look at your life holistically to determine if their are health problems or biochemical reasons for your depression.In addition, I lovingly challenge you to develop a healthy sense of self worth, competence and identity in Christ so you can experience joy and hope again.

Sometimes people feel depresed and can atribute it to stressful events that have occured, other times people can't quite put their finger on why they feel depressed, they just know they're not happy, feel unmotivated, and in some cases hopeless and helpless. What we now know about neuroscience helps us understand how and why depression occurs. I will help you determine whether your depression can be improved through talk therapy combined with some changes to your daily routine or whether a clinical depression has set in that may respond well to medication too. I have a wonderful, caring Doctor I work with who will assess clinical depression and offer recommendaitons if necessary.

Depression can feel overwhelming and unshakable but is in fact, very treatable. I seek to deeply understand the specific nature of each individual's depression. Together, we consider the aspects of your life that might be contributing to your depression. Maximizing your strengths, increasing useful skills and developing thought processes that support growth and healthy living, all help to create a life that feels hopeful and meaningful. I support clients in creating workable and realistic solutions to problems while finding ways to create the life you have been wanting to move towards. Through compassionate inquiry we can discover what conflicts exist that create depressive symptoms.

Everyone will feel depressed at some point in life, because it is part of being human. If the feelings of sadness are not addressed quickly and effectively, sadness may become long-term depression. Depression affects all parts of your psychological and physiological systems; altering your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. When your body becomes overwhelmed with a blanket of sadness, it is hard to get out from under it. This is why it is critical to seek expert intervention as quickly as possible. No one wants to go through their days or weeks feeling unhappy most of the time. Everyone deserves the time and attention necessary to feel better, including you.

Mark D. Parisi, Psy.D. & Associates, P.C. offers evidence-based treatment solutions for depression. Our approach combines thorough evaluation with counseling and psychiatric medication management. We believe that in order to effectively treat any psychiatric problem, it is first important to understand what you are treating. This way, the optimal treatment strategy can be implemented. Our counseling staff will work with you to establish clear, concise, obtainable goals. We have the ability to involve more than one counselor in your care to safeguard your right to privacy in individual counseling. And, when needed, we provide expert psychiatric medication management.

Depression is seen by some as a biochemical imbalance that is genetically transferred to the individual and can only be treated through medication. This might be part of the picture, but also a depressive, negative style of thinking can result in changes in the brain that bring about this unhealthy biochemical imbalance - and psychological treatment can change the thinking style that leads to this imbalance, rendering the individual to be free of reliance on medication and overall improved life that lasts on it's own merits.

Karen’s approach in assisting people suffering from depression varies with each person. She initially searches for the reasons causing the depression, and together she and the client will pursue the changes needed to alleviate the symptoms. Karen uses the word picture with her clients of viewing depression as being down in a valley, and by putting the accepted interventions into practice, she can assist them in climbing out of the valley. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a well researched therapy that has been shown to be effective in treating people suffering from depression, and this is the intervention Karen most often uses along with other accepted techniques.