Depression Counseling in Metuchen, NJ.

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.

Is sadness and despair overwhelming your experience of yourself and the world? Do you feel as if a dark cloud is hovering over you? Do even the simplest things seem too difficult to accomplish? Do you wish you could just leave, even though you don’t even know where to go? Are feelings of helplessness overwhelming you? If you can identify with these descriptions, then you may be struggling with clinical depression. Depression can be temporary striking because of overwhelming life events or it can be more persistent. Regardless of its source, there is effective treatment for these symptoms. Let's work together to help you bring hope and joy back into your life.

Sometimes depression is based in chemical imbalances in our brains. Sometimes depression is caused by the situations in our lives. Learning how to cope with depression is a skill that can be learned and practiced. The pain of depression is often disabling. However, the beliefs we have and the choices we make today can make the difference tomorrow. Medication is not always necessary and is never enough for healing for the pain of depression. I will offer support and techniques to guide you through those dark and depressed times. Life can be filled with joy, hope and serenity. Learn how positive living and positive thinking breaks through the darkness of depression.

There are many evidence-based treatments for depression. As a licensed psychologist, I am trained to deliver many of these effective treatments to you. However, our work together is significant because I personalize these treatments to who you are, what you need, and what works for you. I know what it's like to suffer from depression, and I've made sure to go through years of training and experience to help you unlock the door to excitement, joy, and inspiration.

Depression is often controlled by our unconscious feelings, thoughts, memories, and dreams. Drawing on Positive Psychology and other therapeutic models, I help clients to understand how we relive early experiences unconsciously, and I coach them on behavioral techniques they can use to overcome the vicious cycle of negativity and change their present. These include a blend of empirically based techniques clients can use at work or at home to overcome depression, end self-sabotage, and get unstuck.

Depression can be a challenge in the day to day functions of our lives but together we will bring your strengths to the surface and use evidenced based therapies to assist with improving your mood, increase motivation, increase energy, and find a sense of fulfillment in your life. Therapy will include both CBT and DBT techniques as well as others.

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.

Research shows that the most effective treatment for depression is psychotherapy. Depression can range from feeling down to major symptoms such as having trouble even getting out of bed or contemplating suicide (if you have suicidal thoughts or plans, call the National Suicide Prevention Line at 1-800-273-8255). Online counseling is effective for depression because it is easy to access: you can start treatment without even leaving the house.

I will help you explore the roots of your depression, whether it stems from relationship issues, low self-esteem, biochemistry, or some combination of them. We will formulate an individualized plan of action to help you address the sources of your unhappiness so that you can shed what no longer works for you and begin living a more authentic and fulfilling life.

When you are depressed, you lack energy and motivation, and want to isolate, which is one of the worst things you can do. Negative thinking drags you further into a hole, and staying alone with your thoughts can make the depression worse. I will help you evaluate your thoughts and your situation more objectively, and give you ideas about how to begin to pull yourself out of the darkness. Trying to do it alone can just prolong it. Sometimes you just need a hand to pull you up. I can do that.

I work with many people with depression whether as individuals, or in the context of couples therapy. I help people to become aware of their thoughts, feelings, and the experience they have in their bodies around their depression. I work cognitively and behaviorally to help them understand distorted thinking. I also work to "externalize" the feeling of depression, and help people understand that, "you are not your thoughts." Depression may be visiting you, but you are not depression. Mindfulness is a tool I use with depression to help people understand what is happening to them in the moment, and to begin to open to emotions that may be blocked.

Clients struggling from feeling emotionally hurt, isolated, selfish, helpless, or hopeless can gain insight into symptoms and treatment of depression. Clients can learn emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal relationship skills and heal from past painful experiences that may influence current thoughts and belief systems in an unhealthy way.

Depression is a mood disorder that can cause a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest that can interfere with daily functioning. Reaching out for help is a step towards wellness. Symptoms of depression can vary from person to person, but it is a very treatable condition. Therapy for depression helps you overcome the feelings of hopelessness and despair and to gain control of your life.