Hypnotherapy for depression?

knittysewer

Hi,
It's my first post on the boards.

I'm currently taking anti depressants but despite asking them for 18 months now I feel worse, especially right now.
I felt awful in June and went back to the gp who said as I am breastfeeding the only option is to up the dose but that only had a 10% success rate so I declined.

I've been considering hypnotherapy.

I've tried counselling, nutritional supplements etc, te only thing that has worked in the past is exercise but I'm struggling to do it at the moment...vicious circle I guess.

Anyone know much about hypnotherapy?

I've emailed a hypnotherapist that someone else told me about (I won't say "recommend" bc they are friends) and she says she can "help me". Her fee is £150 for 2 Skype sessions and unlimited emails.

I can't work out if it's worth it...I'd have to sell some stuff to afford it but then again if it freed me it would be worth it. But if it doesn't someone will have lined ther pockets thru my illness.

Pls can I ask for considerate opinions?

trailingspouse

My OH suffers from depression, and I was doing some research into ways to help him. I came across a woman who did counselling but also did hypnotherapy, and she told me that people suffering from depression should not undergo hypnotism. She didn't say why - but I would look around and do some research yourself before committing to anything. The brain is a delicate piece of kit.

Well done for taking charge of your illness.

A.Penny.Saved

Many hypnotherapists will not treat people who are depressed! I therefore would be very suspicious of the one you are in contact with.

If what your experiencing is post natal depression then I am fairly certain that hypnotherapy will provide very little except very deep relaxation. Deep relaxation can help a little as the body and brain work better when deeply relaxed. You could do that yourself by using meditation or self hypnosis but you don't need to pay someone £150 to do that, a tape, CD or track would do it for very little cost, possibly free. I suggest that you search for self hypnosis tracks and try one out for yourself before doing anything. However I really think that you will be throwing money away if you allow this person to take your money. No legitimate hypnotherapist would work by skype, did you know that people have a primary sense, a sense which is more important than any other in their representational system? How could this person make use of that effectively by skype if your primary sense is touch?

I say this because mine is touch and the hypnotherapist I visited did use that on me to help anchor things. About 50% of people have touch as their primary sense. I'm not saying it's impossible done at a distance but it certainly restricts it a lot.

I have been to a hypnotherapist on quite a few occasions myself and read quite a few books on the subject including books my Milton Erickson, so I do know a fair bit about it.

knittysewer

Thank you for your replies.
I had several internal alarm bells go off so when your replies urged caution I decided to not go for that course of action.
I've contacted a local hypnotherapist and I'll see what she can offer for my situation.

ERICS_MUM

I've had depression to varying degrees for years and luckily my doctors were eager to try me on different anti-d's and combinations of them until we found the most effective. Took nearly 2 years !!

The 2nd most effective thing for me for a good 5 years was reflexology - not so much as a treatment for depression (not sure if I believe it has healing powers) but as a deeply relaxing experience that made me feel better for a couple of days afterwards. I had weekly sessions but well worth the expense.

Now I'm a lot better but I still find that "contact therapies" help my mental state, so I have a facial once a month and enjoy a head massage when I go to the hairdressers. My sister is very good at finding and massaging "knots" in my back and shoulders which I assume come about through tension and stress. I don't even realise I am stressed until she gets to work on them.

This is my long winded way of suggesting you try some sort of contact therapy to relieve your depression, as even a slight improvement can boost your mood for a time.

Good luck with finding help, depression is the devil's work and can be very hard to shift.

EM xx

bellathecat_2

Sharon Shinwell has a Hypnotherapy CD for depression and she has been spoken very highly of on this forum. I have used her CDs
http://www.selfhypnosisuk.com/depression-treatment.html

AbbieCadabra

i've recently had hypnotherapy for anxiety, which in turn was causing my long standing depression to grab hold again. it's really suited me & i feel better than i have done in years, i really feel like a weight has been lifted. i never knew how much of a vicious circle anxiety/adrenalin/cortisol could cause, both physically & mentally. i've probably been in this cycle for decades & i believe this could well have been the cause of my depression, this is still to be proved but there is a lot more research on this being done now.

hope you find something that suits you

A.Penny.Saved

I would recommend that the OP begins with progressive muscular relaxation, find a CD or track which directs you on performing that. Find out if that makes a difference, it will make you more physically aware of any tension in your body. My GP gave me a cassette tape, remember those? Cassette tapes shows how long ago I began.

When you are comfortable with that and are more aware of your body and muscular tension find a suitable hypnosis CD/track that guides you into hypnosis. When you become more experienced with self hypnosis you will be able to enter a trance within 30 seconds and enter deep relaxation in a minute or so. I wouldn't recommend that you skip the progressive muscular relaxation because it's a good place to start and will make you more aware of your muscular groups and tension within them. You probably take them all for granted and don't recognise any specific tension. Even your breathing method needs to be checked and possibly corrected to ensure that you breath correctly. Progressive muscular relaxation will help ensure that you are doing that correctly. It's a learning process and it will become quicker and easier the more that you practise.

To me it appears that you are desperately seeking a magic fix for your depression and there isn't one! There is acute and chronic depression and hypnotherapy cannot correct chronic depression. It could help you resolve the causes of acute depression but your nervous system will never be 100% restored at the end of it. Nervousness and anxiety is the usual result. Depression is the resulting effect of years of fear on your nervous system which remembers the fear and adapts so that you are more alert and capable of surviving physical threats to your survival. However in todays world, physical threats are fairly rare so peoples nervous systems adapt, usually to irrational and unhelpful fears, without any benefit, it just causes problems.

It is possible to cure depression but it's difficult. The human nervous system needs to be totally reset so that the body can heal the nervous system and there are aspects which can hinder this which need to be removed. I won't go into this any further on this forum due to forum policies.

I've studied this for well over 20 years. The wrong beliefs that parents teach their children which cause these problems. People, especially those susceptible to depression, believe their parents are perfect but they are not. They did their best but did not get things correct and each generation passes on the same mistaken ideas to their children which is why science believes that depression is genetic when it is not!

NigeWick

knittysewer wrote: »

I'm currently taking anti depressants

I took medications and none of them worked. I also saw a psychotherapist and that didn't help either. The only thing that did it for me was getting out of the job I was in and doing something else. My daughter was going the same way and also gave up a well paid job to do something she actually liked but at minimum wage. We're both happy.

I do recommend reading "The Art of Happiness" written by Howard C. Cutler on the thoughts of the Dalai Lama. It changed the way I see things and really helped me.

cazziebo

I had hypnotherapy for depression and it helped me. This was some time ago and I've not had any recurrence (although the cloud looms from time to time)

I have recently become interested in "Mindfulness"and this might be worth looking at. My friend runs free classes so I'd expect this happens in other locations. I found it very helpful with pain management. Some people just use it for relaxation.

Depression is a horrible illness.

Emuchops

I had hypnotherapy for depression/anxiety and it worked for me. I had been on just about every anti depressant going, and had counselling and CBT (which I found a bit rubbish) over a period of illness lasting almost 3 years.
I went for hypnotherapy as I was getting desperate. The fee was £40 a session (which lasted 2 hours) and she said that she would need 6 sessions. I was never 'put under' and I was conscious and aware throughout. That was about 3 years ago and 'touch wood' apart from the odd 'dip' in mood (which was never reached the lows that I had previously), I have been well.
I'm still a bit anxious-I've always been anxious, even as a child-think it's part of my personality, but again, nowhere near as bad as I was.
HTH.