Understanding and Treating Depression is a course for counsellors, hypnotherapists, and other professionals working with clients who may have depression. The course can also be taken by those interested in gaining a greater understanding about depression for personal development or learning.
The course is taught by Dan Jones, who has worked as a depression and anxiety specialist since 2001 and teaches therapists to treat depression and anxiety disorders, prior to this Dan worked in psychiatric care homes.
This understanding and treating depression course also contains a 54-page PDF of extensive course notes and a PDF document of links to articles to supplement your learning and a list of recommended reading.
Depression is the predominant mental health problem worldwide. In the UK in 2014 one in five people over 16 showed symptoms of anxiety or depression, so it is very common among the general population and there is more prevalence with clients in therapy who perhaps are presenting with something other than depression as their reason for seeking support.
On this course you will learn:
• What depression is and the symptoms of depression
• What causes and maintains depression
• How to treat depression
The course is structured to give you an understanding of what depression is and depression symptoms before covering causes of depression which includes the cycle of depression, the depressive attributional style, worrying, and sleep and depression. Then the course progresses into the nature of depression as a deep trance state and how it isn't the things that happen to people that causes depression, but rather their response to the world around them that leads to depression, then the role of stress in relation to depression is explored. These understandings pave the way to be able to understand how to help clients quickly move on from depression and how to help them reduce the chances of having periods of depression in the future.
One of the first paradigms explored is the idea that rather than depression being a problem it is actually a solution or a signal for the client, and to tackle the depression you need to know what it is a signal or solution for and address that. The course looks at some of the myths around depression treatment, like clients having to feel worse before they get better, that anti-depressants are a good solution for long-term treatment of depression, and that depression is a biological illness.
Before getting into what you can do to treat depression there is an overview of the main drugs used in depression treatment. It is common for clients to assume therapists know about the drugs they have been prescribed, so it is helpful to have a basic understanding of this, Then the course moves into how to lift depression, how I structure a therapy session when working with depression clients, what information I look for from the client, how I gather that information, what information is needed from a client to help them move on from being depressed and how I help clients to carry changes forward into their life beyond the therapy session.
To end the course diet, nutrition and exercise are covered as well as two topics I rarely see on other courses, safeguarding your client, as there is an increased risk of suicide among depressed clients, and there maybe risk of harm to others, and safeguarding yourself, it can be an emotional and difficult role working with depressed clients, especially if they commit suicide or threaten to, or if they have been revealing very emotional information to you, so it is important to know how to look after yourself.
I am always on hand to respond to any questions you may have as you progress through the course (I try to respond to questions within 24 hours). There is also a Sussex Hypnotherapy Centre certificate of completion in addition to the Udemy certificate of completion.
