All the different types of effective therapy for depression

In Tuesday’s post I wrote that there were more types of therapy out there than you can shake a stick at. I should have said ‘effective therapies’ i.e. things that are proven to make you feel better. It’s amazing how many approaches have been evaluated and found to work. Just to give you an ideas, here are all the ones I know about:

• Behavioural therapy (focus on activity, particularly planning activities for the day and pleasurable activities)
• Cognitive therapy (using lumped with behavioural therapy and called CBT for cog behav therapy, involves identifying and changing key thinking errors)
• Interpersonal therapy (IPT, involves improving relationships)
• Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT, with a focus on accepting feelings as they are)
• Mindfulness (awareness of experiences and sensations without much conscious thought)
• Aerobic exercise (e.g. walking, running)
• Anaerobic exercise (weight lifting and other resistance exercise)
• Bright light (from the sun or a light box)
• Omega 3 fatty acids (ideally in the correct proportion to omega 6 fatty acids. In our modern diet we tend to get too much Omega 6 and not enough Omega 3, which is what causes the problems)
• Therapeutic life style changes (TLC, involves a return to an earlier way of life with more exercise, a diet higher in Omega3 fatty acids and more social contact and support)
• Antidepressant medication
• Positive psychology techniques such as using a key personal strength in a new way, making a note of good things that happen, responding positively to others’ good news, savouring positive experiences/ sensations and attending to positive, uplifting media such as films.

You can see from this list why I said that if you don’t find one approach that you feel comfortable with or works for you there’s always another! I haven’t even mentioned the things that I and other people have found helpful that haven’t been confirmed as effective by research yet.