Depression Counseling in Hackensack, NJ.

Hal helps clients understand depression and better cope with the nasty and persistent erosion of hope. Hal encourages his clients to understand the reason(s) for their depression and unique ways to climb out of it. He also encourages clients to connect to, express, even write about their depression. Hal believes that only by facing it head are we able to effectively disarm depression, while increasing self-esteem.

I help my clients learn how to let go of their depression and replace it with acceptance and joy. Depression often occurs when we take situations and others' behavior personally. When we think they mean something about our self-worth. You can learn how to define your own self-worth and not allow anything outside yourself to determine your mood. I can help you learn how to take better care of yourself by learning to heal the deeper feelings underneath your depression like sadness, helplessness and loneliness.

While implementing a cognitive behavioral approach, I have extensive experience in helping clients improve their mood and quality of their life. I utilize evidence-based methods that can relieve emotional pain and aid clients’ recovery from debilitating symptoms. Treatment can bring back positive feelings, allowing you to improve your connection with yourself and others, achieve fulfillment and help you to function at your best.

Someone once said that depression "can't hit a moving target". Unfortunately, it also makes you so tired you can't move! Your experience of depression, and the solution is likely as unique as you are. Often treatment includes exploring patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving that may be holding you back. There is life after depression. Together we will gently explore the cause of your experience, and discover the best approach for you. I am trained and certified in several evidence based practices to treat depression.

I believe that depression is nature’s way of shutting us down when there is some element in our life or our past that overwhelms and burdens us. It is often something experienced that our usual ways of coping cannot remedy. A client experiencing depression is often ‘turning off’, ‘shutting down’ and going inward in response to something in their life or in their relationships that is just too much to bear. I help depressed clients discover what it is in their life that is overwhelming them and help them find the strength and power to directly face the matter that is causing the turn inward and the shutting down.

Depression leaves people feeling lethargic, unmotivated and often hopeless. It can be difficult to see your way out. It has been proven that with professional help your situation can look brighter. As your outlook begins to improve you will notice increased energy, developing enthusiasm and the return of prior interests. Finding a supportive, empathic professional you can trust is key. Don't go through it alone.

If you have a pulse and a heart, you have been sad. Using the science of happiness rather than standard interventions for depression we focus on increasing positive emotion, engagement, and meaning rather than directly targeting depressive symptoms. In using these interventions with clients I have noted the effects of these interventions in a variety of settings. In informal and clinical settings these interventions have commonly been reported to me and referred to as “life-changing.”

Some of our staff here at the Mars & Venus Counseling Center are experts in the treatment of depression. These experienced counselors, through the techniques and philosophies of leaders in the field of counseling, will provide compassionate, comprehensive treatment of depression for adults, adolescents, and children. Counseling is provided on an individual basis for adults. Family involvement is necessary for the treatment of children and adolescents. Some of the typical symptoms of depression are low energy, low self-esteem, insomnia, over-eating or poor appetite, difficulty concentrating or making decisions, and feelings of hopelessness. These symptoms can be from mild to severe with different periods of time. The counselor will help the client...(view profile to read more)

I have extensive experience working with depression, from mild forms to severe, cripplling depression. Sometimes depression can seem like the world around you has changed, leaving you isolated and feeling all alone. At times some may feel unable to go on with their daily life. I help you identify the root causes of depression and can provide strategies to move through and onwards with life.

Depression is a feeling that can feel incredibly heavy to hold. Sometimes we experience challenging life events that leave us feeling much sadness, grief, inner pain and lack of joy, which interfere with our daily functioning. That is called depression. With Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (challenging unhelpful thoughts) and psychodynamic modalities, I can help you work through that sadness, heaviness and pain, so that you may begin the journey of healing work. This is the first step towards holding the sadness, addressing yourself in a safe space so we can slowly help you process and shift to start feeling lighter and start seeing the sunshine and tasting the small joys in everyday life.

Children and adolescents who act out due to symptoms of AD/HD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Autistic Spectrum Disorders, and School Underachievement constantly receive negative feedback from parents, teachers, and peers. This results in underlying feelings of helplessness and hopelessness leading to depression. I motivate such children to develop self-control which leads to improved academic and social skills. This leads to social acceptance and academic achievement and self-esteem rises. Helplessness and hopelessness dissipate and depression and anxiety lessen.

Depression is defined as a mood disorder that so many people experience nowadays. It can be induced for many reasons such as grief/loss or even be environmentally based. Depression is when you feel persistent bouts of sadness and hopelessness. You will often lose interest in activities that you once enjoyed, have a loss of appetite, feel fatigue and withdraw socially. Things that once seemed easy may feel difficult to do now. At Emerge, you will regain your emotional and physical strength by exploring and becoming knowledgeable about the triggers that cause your depression. Together, we refocus and define your goals to becoming emotionally and physically well again.

Depression is anger turned inward or against yourself. As anger builds within, an individual has three choices: To channel the anger energy assertively by expressing the feelings attached to the situations causing one to feel depressed; to express the anger through outbursts that can be very destructive to the self and others; to internalize the anger and become more depressed and less functional with time. My job is to enable you to learn how to identify and express feelings that are causing you to feel depressed. The next step is to change behaviors associated with your feelings freeing you from depressive thoughts and feelings.