The best first step to take when you decide to treat depression is to see your doctor or primary care physician. If you don’t have a regular doctor, a visit to a local community clinic is also a great first place to start. Here your doctor can get a good idea of your symptoms and recommend the best course of action for your particular case. Many times for depression you will be sent to see either a psychiatrist or a psychologist. The difference between the two is that a psychiatrist can prescribe medications to help treat depression, whereas a psychologist works primarily through therapy. If you are forced to wait a while before starting treatment with your doctor’s recommended mental health professional and you believe this will create further health risks, let your doctor know so you can get the needed treatment right away.
The first part of your treatment may be going on anti-depressant medications. Anti-depressant medications can take from two to six weeks to take full effect. If at first you don’t notice any changes, don’t go off the drugs, this just means they haven’t taken affect yet. Now if you are suffering from depression, you may experience sexual side effects of the disease, let your doctor know if this is a problem because many types of anti-depressants may work to exacerbate sexual health problems. Anti-depressants can frequently cause male erectile dysfunction, and if this is the case, let your doctor know right away.
Most likely if you are prescribed medications you will also have to go to therapy to get at the root cause of your depression. Most likely your therapy will be one-on-one appointments with a therapist or a psychiatrist. Group therapy and support groups can also be utilized by mental health practitioners depending on the particular case. The overall job of therapy is to find out the behaviors, emotions and ideas that led to your personal case of depression. When the contributing factors are discovered you and the therapist can begin working on lifestyle, personal and interpersonal changes that can be made to address the situation. Therapy should eventually work to help you better realistically assess your situation and to regain control and joy in your life.
Depending on your case, therapy can reveal the source of your depression whether it is a life event, brain chemistry, unconscious conflict or other root cause. The effectiveness of your therapy sessions will have a lot to do with your ability to communicate with your therapist. The therapist can only go off of the information you give them, so the more honest and candid you are, the more effective your treatment will be. Also, therapy is not a quick fix and takes a lot of hard work outside of your sessions to help get past the obstacles presented by depression. Therapy can be very effective, but it only works if you work hard implementing the recommendations of your therapist. Successful therapy can also result in being able to live a happy and productive life without having to use anti-depressant medications.
