By: Alan B. Densky, CH
Everyone has feelings of sadness. Usually, these times persist for a few hours or days. Almost one-fifth of the world's population, however, experience major depression, which causes depression that lasts for weeks, months, or longer. These emotions cause the person to develop difficulties performance in career, family, or interpersonal interactions, which can become disabling.
Females who have signs of depression after becoming pregnant are sometimes diagnosed with perinatal depression. This illness may develop any time after a woman becomes pregnant, or any time thereafter, until the baby is one year old. Usually, however, women who develop this problem after the child is born are diagnosed with postpartum depression.
Perinatal depression or postpartum depression is linked with many factors. These factors may be physical. For example, females who have a previous or familial history of severe depression or mental illness are more likely to experience perinatal depression or postpartum depression. Moreover, alterations in hormone levels in postpartum mothers, such as drops in estrogen and progesterone amounts, can precipitate this illness. After childbirth, thyroid disorders may result in symptoms of depression such as exhaustion, irritability, and hopelessness.
At times, mental depression results from psychological issues. Women may feel fatigued and stressed in learning to manage the needs of the new infant. These issues are often increased by a lack of assistance from family, friends, or significant other. Money problems may also assist in causing postpartum depression.
Perinatal depression and postpartum depression may have grave consequences for both the woman and her infant. Anxiety and depression may hinder a woman from connecting completely with her infant or being capable of meeting her baby's physical and psychological requirements. This may further compound the woman's sense of worthlessness, guilt, and low self-worth.
The child is also stressed by the new mother's problems. Failure to bond with his or her mother may result in the baby to develop trust problems in emotional relationships throughout life. In addition, children who do not have their physical or psychological requirements met typically fail to grow and develop normally. This problem, described as "failure to thrive," may be very serious or even deadly to the child.
Perinatal depression or postpartum depression can harm the entire family. The spouse or partner can feel ignored or unable to relieve these depression symptoms. This may irreparably hurt their relationship. Older children in the family may experience similar feelings, and have school-related or peer difficulties as well.
Depression harms the whole family. For this reason, women experiencing perinatal depression or postpartum depression should get depression treatment as quickly as possible. Many techniques can be used, such as talk therapy and drug treatments. Medications, however, may be dangerous for nursing infants, and often have erratic outcomes because of the tremendous hormone variations a woman experiences during these tumultuous months. Moreover, typical counseling approaches can be time-consuming and costly.
Two
therapies for dealing with depression that do not involve medications and may rapidly show incredibly beneficial outcomes are hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Traditional Hypnotherapy is most effective for clients who are effortlessly hypnotized or able to accept suggestions without needing to analyze or understand them. Ericksonian Hypnotherapy is quite effective for clients who often overanalyze. These therapies aid people to unwind and eliminate stress.
For clients who tend to be more critical or analytical thinkers, NLP is often more beneficial. Through NLP, trained professionals give people depression help by coaching them to restructure their mental processes. This approach can, quite literally, aid a person think beyond the depressive mood and conquer it.
People can
conquer depression by learning NLP strategies such as anchoring. They learn to remember occasions when they were happy and controlled their situations. Recalling the memory renews these feelings. Individuals are coached to touch two fingers together while experiencing these emotions. The subconscious mind associates the touch of the two fingers with the feelings. Thus, the finger touch becomes an "anchor."
Then, when the individual starts to feel stressed, he or she triggers the anchor by putting these identical two fingers together again. This brings back feelings of self-control and creates empowerment.
Through another technique called the Flash, people discover how to reason away negative emotions. They teach their subconscious minds to instantly exchange positive thoughts for negative ones. When negative thoughts arise, the brain instantly substitutes them for positive responses. After developing this method, people find it nearly impossible to conjure up negative thoughts!
Summary:
Perinatal depression and postpartum depression may have disastrous results for a woman and her new infant. The rest of their family is also deeply affected by these conditions. Because of the possible gravity of the consequences of this disorder, new mothers with depression should get treatment as soon as signs develop. Two quite beneficial treatments that do not use medicine or huge investments of time and financial resources are hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming.
About the Author:
Alan B. Densky, CH specializes in stress and depression related symptoms as an NGH certified hypnotist. He's helped thousands of clients since 1978. He supplies
self-hypnosis therapy for depression CDs. Visit his
Neuro-VISION self hypnosis site for the hypnosis article index, or watch his
free video hypnosis collection.
