Sadness, no motivation, extreme fatigue, no appetite, lying for three hours before going to bed, feeling that I am a burden to the people around me, imprisoned by my own thoughts, and extremely painful ... This is a common state for psychologists after accepting patients with depression. Their emotional ability is so good that they are trapped in the patient's emotions and cannot extricate themselves.
People in this state need cognitive reorganization training: test a person's negative thoughts with reality as the standard: is my idea realistic? Which arguments support my idea and which are against it?
This kind of reasoning training aims to dilute the influence of negative thoughts, so as to control their negative emotions.
Stefani Oran-Pelissolo, the author of this chapter, mentioned EMDR therapy, which is especially used to treat psychological diseases caused by traumatic events.
Most of our memories, whether positive, neutral or negative, are usually stored in long-term memory. In fact, these painful memories are not properly stored in long-term memory, but stay in the "primitive" state at the time of occurrence, accompanied by the scene, negative thoughts and physical and mental feelings at that time.
EMDR therapy can reprocess painful memories and eliminate negative emotions attached to painful memories.
Psychologists will let patients relive the visual, mental, emotional and sensory memories left by traumatic events, and at the same time let patients stare at the doctor's horizontally moving hand. At this time, after about 30 seconds of eye movement, the doctor will ask the patient what is on his mind at present: sometimes there are some pictures, emotions, thoughts or physical feelings, and sometimes there is nothing.
Because I have no such treatment experience, I don't know if this method is effective, but the rapid eye movement period really makes my mind dizzy.
Stefani Oran-Pelliso Rowe believes that EMDR therapy has brought him the peace of painful memories.
In addition, this chapter also mentions MBCT therapy (Vipassana cognitive therapy): "Actively focus on the changes in our own feelings at present, and don't make any judgments about them". This state is called mindfulness, which is contrary to the "automatic driving state" of our body.
The core principle of mindfulness therapy is that we should learn to stop and feel the present life. Go back to the present, appreciate the positive side of life and slow it down.
How to prevent the recurrence of depression;