About Working With Depressive States

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Who is this article for?

First of all, for people who have faced loss in one way or another and are in a state of grief. You are not alone, and there are tools to deal with this.

For colleagues working with psychological problems. Perhaps you will give feedback, bring something important and valuable from your experience, which will make it possible to help people in difficult life situations even better.

I tried to avoid terms as much as possible, to make the text of the article as accessible as possible to those who have meaning and a reason to address the problem associated with depressive conditions.

So let's go.

The meaning and mechanism of the depressive state.

Depressive state is a universal solvent of desires, dreams, aspirations.

And also beliefs, attitudes, meanings and other things, on which desires, dreams and aspirations are based.

When all this is connected with the feeling of I, then this very I begins to dissolve, giving rise to a feeling of non-being.

In general, it can be argued that this is a natural state, the meaning of which is getting rid of the connection with the lost object and the satisfied values / criteria associated with it.

The more values / criteria are associated with the lost object, the more intense / deeper the state.

For example, a lost pen bought in a supermarket is not equal in value to a similar pen donated by a loved one, and the duration and depth of the depressive state will be different: from seconds in the first case to hours / days in the second.

If we are talking about an object assigned at the level of self-identification / merging with it (parents, children, close friends, habitual lifestyle), then depriving it is subjectively equivalent to the loss of a part of the I and partial / complete dissolution of the remaining part, and the emotional pain from this is comparable with severe bodily pain due to severe physical injury.

About trauma and splitting.

It is worth recalling here that during a psychotraumatic experience, the psyche produces the so-called "splitting":

- the part is "frozen" - keeps the feelings of trauma;

- a part of the psyche becomes "observing", ready for further life, development, but without the "frozen" part;

- part - creates a "defender". Here are the reactions to trauma: anger (rage), freezing, avoidance.

A depressive state is about "fading", accepting one's own powerlessness, resigning with disappearance.

Trauma, as you know, has the ability to reproduce: the psyche tries to integrate the "frozen" part of itself, reproducing states similar to those stored in the "freeze", and does this in different contexts.

And when such an attempt takes place, the feelings and states accompanying this trauma also come: "observer" and "protector".

Distortion of context.

The context can be set by the parameters "where (space), when (time), with whom (people with whom there is a connection, interaction)".

In a depressed state, the following violations of the context occur:

Space:

the subjective perception of space is distorted: either it becomes huge and empty, or small and oppressive.

The metaphor of space has dark, muddy tones.

Time:

the perception of time is distorted in one of the options:

- past, present and future merge into a single immovable whole;

- the past and the present merge, the future is subjectively absent;

- the past and the present merge, the future is present, but alarming.

The associated (included) timeline merges with the dark space.

There is no discrete (end-to-end) time line.

People:

people's perception is distorted:

- distant, communication with them is not available;

- near, but overhanging, threatening, and communication with them causes anxiety, fear.

Self-image (I)

The image of oneself is distorted:

- becomes small, loose, disappearing, or

- becomes huge, loose.

Attention Filters (Metaprograms):

- sensory representational system: kinesthetic (emotions, sensations in the body) prevails;

- reference (locus of control) - external. "Nothing depends on me, another is needed." The inner, I believe, turns on when the psychotic experience is activated;

- motivation - K (approximation). The striving for the lost object, where there is "emptiness", remains;

- reaction style - reflective;

- information block size - global;

- orientation in time - past about the present;

- time coordinates - included time (associated time line).

Exit from a depressive state.

Based on the above, I build my work with depression according to the following strategy:

1. Adjustment and rapport. Since everyone has an experience of losses and depressive states, this can be taken as a support for the client's recognition, so that he subjectively begins to perceive the specialist as a significant other with whom there is a connection and relationship, even when a depressive episode is active.

2. Restore context. For this:

- help the client to restore the perception of time.

The tools for this are a discrete timeline, we are looking for ways that are comfortable for the client. In a depressive episode, the recollection of the discrete timeline interrupts it. Here lies the key to removing anxiety;

- to help the client transform the perception of space, it is also the included, associated time line. Paint / reveal other colors in the space besides the overwhelming ones.

These two points already remove the depressive state, add a sense of energy, other people appear in the subjective perception.

Further - work with the intention behind it, search for the lost criterion and compensation / replacement / rejection of it, gaining new meanings.

The tools here are work with trauma across the timeline, regressive trance, language tricks, active work with images, teaching a high quality feedback model.