How to Treat Depression Without Medication Essay

While it takes more(prenominal) than a simple modus vivendi change to gear upively attack a medical issue a great deal(prenominal) as depression, it is not more medicament that this Country needs more of, but rather a greater awareness, better mental health education and greater access to therapy for those paltry from this condition. Depression is as much an organic, physiological issue as a broken bone or heart fuss but because it cannot be seen it is often ignored, dismissed, mistreated or over-medicated by the vast majority of healthcare providers.Todays health maintenance organization driven, music dependent society tends to throw pharmaceutical band-aids at the problem of depression. A more holistic, therapeutic approach, ideally involving the family/support system of the tolerant would, in the long run, be both a more effect and lasting treatment for the patient role and more cost effective as well. While depression can, in fact, be helped by the use of fitting medic ations, any long-term treatment must include talk over/therapy and epoch-making and lasting lifestyle changes.Depression is, in fact, the catalyst that has lead me to trail my current academic and professional dream to become a Psychologist. It is likewise something that I have a great deal of personal arrive with, both as a parent of a clinically demoralize teenager and as a woman living with a depressive disturbance myself. In my own personal understand, the majority of doctors tend to throw medication at the issue of depression, when in fact, for many patients, therapeutic counseling and mental hygiene is often all that is needed.This tendency to medicate first and counsel second, in particular in teens, can be irreparably damaging. Psychological medications, by their actually nature, effect brain chemistry and can have huge blackball side set up suicidal tendencies, physical aggression, dramatic cant collide with (which can have psychological and some other medic al side effect of its own), to name a few. These side effects can often clock be even more emotionally damaging and dangerous to the patient than the depression itself.In 1998, after years of struggling, I was diagnosed with Post traumatic Stress Disorder. My own personal struggle with depression has also multiform quite a few medications, with varying successes and varying degrees of side-effects. While meddling for an effective treatment for me, my doctors prescribed any number of SSRIs, Beta Blockers and other commonly prescribed medications for the treatment of depressive disorders. I fought with sexual side effects, angle gain, crippling panic attacks, suicidal thoughts and more.In the end, I chose to wean myself from the medication and focus on therapy and the necessary lifestyle changes that go along with it. It is lock a daily struggle and a choice to be cheerful and fight the demons that haunt me, but with the help of God, my family and my therapist, I am happier and more well-adjusted than ever before in my life. In a ontogeny brain, like that of a depressed adolescent, these potentially hazardous side effects can be even more detrimental.In 2006, My then 14 year old daughter, when faced with depression due to her parents divorce and qualifying to life as an Army Brat, was put on Prozac by her Family Practice Physician. Within 30 days she had to be hospitalized and detoxified after suffering a psychotic episode at school and weeks of suicidal and murderous thoughts. After a year of numerous diagnoses, multitudes of different psychological medications and weight gain of almost 80 pounds, she was no more emotionally lasting than she was when she had begun the treatment.With the assistance of a new Psychiatrist and Primary Care Physician, we deprive her off all of the psychological medications and instead enrolled her in bi-weekly, one-on-one counseling with a Psychologist. It took her almost 3 years to undo the damage the experience with th e hospital and medication trials had inflicted on her. She is finally doing well, is stable and uses counseling, meditation, breathing techniques and a number of other therapeutic tools to deal with the stresses of life, rather than continuing to be medication-dependent and suffering the side effects of those medications.