Healing Depression - 4 Steps
Depression
Depression afflicts both men and woman, both the old and the young. It has grown in epidemic proportions in recent decades. However, many powerful resources are available for healing this debilitating condition - and then moving on with joy and confidence. The information in this section will be helpful both for those struggling with depression themselves, and for those seeking to assist and support them.
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Your Happiness Toolkit - A Powerful New Resource for Fighting Depression
Your Happiness Toolkit: 16 Strategies for Overcoming Depression, and Building a Joyful, Fulfilling Life is a comprehensive guidebook for depression recovery and prevention. Written by Carrie M. Wrigley, LCSW, it contains a treasure box of healing strategies, drawn from Carrie’s 30+ years as a counselor. It features practical, drug-free techniques you can use – starting today-– to help yourself or someone you love.
This book is available on Amazon, as a paperback, ebook, or audiobook. Get your copy today, to learn how to build a "happiness toolkit" that can go with you wherever you go, to strengthen you and lift you up - even in challenging times.
Read more: Your Happiness Toolkit - A Powerful New Resource for Fighting Depression
Christ-Centered Healing from Depression
"Christ-Centered Healing from Depression and Low Self-Worth."
A 55-minute talk recorded by Carrie Maxwell Wrigley, LCSW, in 2005 for BYU Education Week, produced by KBYU-TV, now available on You-Tube :
Best Books on Depression
These are our favorite books on healing from depression:
- The Feeling Good Handbook, by David D. Burns, MD
- Your Happiness Toolkit: 16 Strategies for Overcoming Depression, and Building a Joyful, Fulfilling Life
, by Carrie M. Wrigley
- Breaking the Patterns of Depression, by Michael D. Yapko, PhD
- Your Happiness Toolkit Workbook, by Carrie M. Wrigley
- Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life, by Martin P. Seligman, PhD
- Depression-Free for Life: A Physician's All-Natural, 5-Step Plan, by Gabriel Cousins, MD
- Hand-Me-Down Blues: How To Stop Depression From Spreading In Families, by Michael Yapko, PhD
- Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy Revised and Updated, by David D. Burns, MD
- The Antidepressant Solution: A Step-by-Step Guide to Safely Overcoming Antidepressant Withdrawal, Dependence, and "Addiction", by Joseph Glenmullen, MD
- Depression Is Contagious: How the Most Common Mood Disorder Is Spreading Around the World and How to Stop It, by Michael D. Yapko, Ph.D.
- A Mind of Your Own: The Truth About Depression and How Women Can Heal Their Bodies to Reclaim Their Lives, by Kelly Brogan
, by Carrie M. Wrigley-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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For more books on additional topics, please visit our Best Books Catalog.
Healing from Depression - Practical Steps Up to Wellness
There is Hope - There is Healing
Feeling down? Overwhelmed? Discouraged? Hopeless? Having trouble sleeping? eating? making decisions? finding any joy or real purpose in life?
These are some of the common symptoms of an ever-more common disorder - Depression. If you are struggling with it, you are definitely not alone!
Read more: Healing from Depression - Practical Steps Up to Wellness
Step One: Learn About Depression
What Depression Is... And What It Isn't
This first step is truly the foundation of everything else in the process of emotional healing. You have to know what you're dealing with, in order to combat it effectively. A true premise of understanding is the foundation of empowering attitudes and action, that can lead to the desired results of healing, peace, and wellbeing. In contrast, a false premise of understanding can lead to ineffective, time-consuming, even debilitating results.
Here is a comparison of what depression is... and what it isn't:
Step Two: Understand Causes
Identify the Individualized Causes of Your Depression
No two depressions are alike. Like thumbprints, they are exquisitely individual, with unique variations from person to person. Even within the same individual, two episodes of depression, occurring at different times in life, can be very different than one another - having a different combination of causes and influences.
That is why, even in the same individual, what works to ease one depressive episode may be useless or even counter-productive in dealing with another episode. On the other hand, some factors causing depression may recur over and over again until they are resolved. In that instance, individuals can be benefited by remembering strategies that helped them through the last hard season, and re-applying them.
Step Three: Identify Solutions
Find Meaningful Solutions to Each Factor
It can feel overwhelming at first to identify the various factors contributing to your depression. You may wonder if you're up to the task of recovery. You may believe that you're one of those who "really IS chemically imbalanced," without hope of improvement. But remember – that belief can be your biggest impediment to feeling better. Recovery requires hope – hope of change, hope of resolution. Hope can be scary – but it is the first gateway leading out of depression.
Step Four: Build a Lifestyle of Joy
By Putting Identified Solutions Into Practice
This final step brings together everything that you've learned in this series. You could liken the process to growing a garden. Let's say you move into a new house, and find that the garden area outside has been neglected for years. It's full of tall weeds, hard untilled dirt, old leaves and debris.
But you have a vision of what that spot of ground can become. So, through several clear, practical steps, over the process of time, you work hard - and you successfully transform that pile of weeds and debris into a fresh, vibrant vegetable garden.
Videos
NEW! - These are videos of Carrie M. Wrigley, LCSW, discussing the process and content of Christ-centered healing, on a range of topics. Created in 2016 by Seth Adam Smith, and featuring also exquisite statues of Christ, created by Angela Johnson.
Exercise And Depression
One of the most simple, yet powerful, ways to fight depression is physical exercise. Exercise can help stabilize brain chemistry, increase energy, improve overall health and wellbeing, and improve self-confidence. All of these benefits, and others, can help individuals who are depressed to recover.
Exercise can also be a powerful prevention strategy: both to prevent depression in those who have not been afflicted with it; and to prevent depressive relapse in those who have experienced one or more depressive episodes.
Many articles online contain helpful insights and suggestions that can help you get started. The PDF below contains descriptions and links to some of the best resources online on this topic:
Handouts on Depression
(Currently 24 handouts, most in PDF format.)
Treatment overviews, charts, assessment tools, worksheets, research, lecture notes, etc.
For additional tools for healing depression, see collection of handouts on CBT skills and strategies.
Handouts on CBT Skills and Strategies
(Currently 13 handouts, all in PDF format.)
Summarizing skills and techniques for applying CBT (Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy),
one of the top methods for overcoming depression, anxiety, anger, relationship problem, and other issues.
Best Healing Products
These are our favorite healing products
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For books on additional topics, please visit our Best Books Catalog.
LDS Articles on Depression
LDS Articles Referenced in
"Christ-Centered Healing from Depression and Low Self-Worth"
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Ezra Taft Benson, “Do Not Despair,” Ensign, Nov 1974, 65. See it also 12 years later, with little variation, as a First Presidency Message: Ensign, Oct. 1986, 2. (Depression described as an increasingly common form of spiritual attack, with "righteous alternatives" identified to help overcome it.) |
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Russell M. Nelson, “Joy and Spiritual Survival” October 2016 (Teaching the power of positive spiritual focus, for maintaining joy and optimism - whether in good times, or in challenging times.) |
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Boyd K. Packer, “Solving Emotional Problems in the Lord’s Own Way,” Ensign, May 1978, 91. (Basic thesis - Fostering self reliance is a core principle in helping others - whether with physical needs or with emotional/spiritual needs.) |
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Richard G. Scott, “Finding Joy in Life,” Ensign, May 1996, 24 (Teaching the power of positive perspective, illustrated by a pebble held up to the eye, where it obstructs the view of everything else, or cast onto ground for realistic perspective.) |
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Chieko N. Okazaki, “Rowing Your Boat,” Ensign, Nov 1994, 92 (Explaining the need for a balanced approach, to "seek learning, by study and also by faith" - D&C 88:118 ) |
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Richard G. Scott, “To Be Free of Heavy Burdens,” Ensign, Nov 2002, 86 ("Complete healing will come, through your faith in Jesus Christ. Ponder the power of the Atonement. Pray to understand how it can heal you.") |
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"Chemical Imbalance" - What the Research Says
The "chemical imbalance" theory has been in existence for at least 5 decades, and over the last 2 decades has been the primary rationale for use of antidepressants, mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, and other powerful psychiatric drugs. The prevailing message is, "You need this drug to manage a chemical imbalance in your brain." Media shows, advertisements to the public, articles in professional medical journals, continuing education programs for doctors, and drug information pamphlets all refer to these ideas as if they were established scientific fact. How reliable are these messages, and how much should they affect our choices about how to manage depression?
Best Books on Chemical Imbalance
These are our favorite books on chemical imbalance:
- Healing Depression without Medication: A Psychiatrist's Guide to Balancing Mind, Body, and Soul, by Jodie Skillicorn, DO
- The Emperor's New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth, by Irving Kirsch, Ph.D.
- Blaming the Brain: The Truth About Drugs and Mental Health, Elliot S. Valenstein, Ph.D.
- Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America, by Robert Whitaker
- Overdosed in America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine, by John Anderson
- Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche, by Ethan Watters
- Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients, by Ray Moynihan & Alan Cassels
- The Inflamed Mind: A Radical New Approach to Depression, Edward Bullmore
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For more books on additional topics, please visit our Best Books Catalog.
Transcript, Christ-Centered Healing from Depression
The transcript for "Christ-Centered Healing for Depression and Low Self Worth," recorded in 2005 by Carrie M. Wrigley for the BYU Education Week series, is available here at this site :
Transcript, "Christ -Centered Healing from Depression and Low Self-Worth
Hopefully this will be a helpful resource for the many people over the years who have requested a transcript of the talk, to study it more intensively, and to be able to apply its concepts more effectively. An index and summary of ideas presented in the talk appear below:
Read more: Transcript, Christ-Centered Healing from Depression
Depression Recovery Conference - Handouts and References
On Sept. 24, 2010, Carrie M. Wrigley of Morning Light Counseling gave a talk at the Depression Recovery Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. The talk was entitled "Comprehensive Approach to Depression," and gave an overview of many strategies currently available to help understand, treat, and prevent depression. Resources from this talk are provided below:
Read more: Depression Recovery Conference - Handouts and References
Resource List: Recovering from Depression
Providing tools and information to promote depression recovery has always been one of the core purposes of this site, and continues to be one of its primary missions. Here is an overview of the resources on depression recovery available here:
