Anxiety & Depression Therapy
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Anxiety disorders and mood disorders are some of the most common mental health issues in the world. About a third of people in the US develop an anxiety disorder at any point in their lifetime. Meanwhile, around a tenth of adults in the US experience a depressive episode per year.
However, it’s important to note that these two conditions can often co-occur. It is estimated that about 60 percent of people with either an anxiety disorder or symptoms of depression also have symptoms of the other. Anxiety and depression share many risk factors, and they can exacerbate each other’s respective symptoms.
While they co-occur often, treatment for co-occurring conditions is more complex than a single condition. Someone with anxiety and depression will have different considerations for treatment – especially in the topics of medication and talk therapy – than someone with only an anxiety diagnosis, or depression diagnosis.
At Coastwise, we make use of a combination of modalities to tackle anxiety and depression symptoms.
What Do Anxiety & Depression Look Like?
Understanding anxiety and depression is important. Being able to recognize the signs and symptoms of an anxiety disorder or depression can help people differentiate between symptoms of their condition and healthy thinking. It’s also helpful to know how anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, and cases where both are combined can differ in terms of symptoms and common signs.
Anxiety disorders are mental health conditions characterized primarily by irrational fear or worry. These conditions can range from phobias to generalized worry, which can introduce symptoms of mental and physical fatigue over time.
Depressive disorders are mental health conditions more accurately described as mood disorders. These conditions are characterized by episodes of consistently low or consistently high mood for no apparent reason. While a consistently low mood indicates a depressive episode, a consistently high mood indicates a manic episode. Conditions that involve both depression and mania or hypomania are described as bipolar disorders.
A comprehensive treatment plan for both anxiety and depressive disorders should incorporate long-term learning strategies, to further develop a client’s knowledge of their respective conditions and the stressors that might aggravate them in the future. Taking a look at the symptoms for anxiety disorders, the symptoms for depressive disorders, and the signs or symptoms that might occur when both overlap can help provide a clearer picture.
Common Symptoms of Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety disorders are characterized by persistent feelings of worry and fear. While it’s normal to be worried about something important, anxiety disorders imply overwhelming or paralyzing fear, or persistent worry over an irrational, or non-present danger. Some common signs of different anxiety disorders include:
- Excessive worrying
- Restlessness
- Irritability
- Avoidance behaviors
- Panic attacks
Common Symptoms of Depression
Depressive disorders are characterized by a persistently low mood, or just an overwhelming feeling of sadness. To be considered depressed, a person must be experiencing this feeling of sadness over multiple weeks, often without a concrete reason (such as grief). Common symptoms of depression include:
- Persistent sadness
- Changes in appetite or weight
- Feelings of worthlessness or guilt
- Suicidal thoughts or behaviors
Recognizing Anxiety & Depression Together
Symptoms that might indicate anxiety and depression at the same time include:
- Unexplained physical symptoms of pain and fatigue, including headaches, stomach aches, or hyperventilation.
- Persistent feelings of worthlessness coupled with persistent feelings of worry or fear.
- Problems with consistent sleep, even with medication.
- Difficulty making decisions, foggy brain, and trouble focusing.
- Loss of interest in old hobbies, without any new ones.
Anxiety and depression symptoms can be similar in many ways. If you think you or a loved one might be struggling with an undiagnosed second mental health condition, it’s important to talk to a professional. Qualified mental health professionals, including therapists and psychologists, can diagnose a mental health disorder. We at Coastwise can help you schedule an appointment with an accredited mental health professional.
Anxiety & Depression Therapy at Coastwise
At Coastwise, we utilize several different treatment methods to address both anxiety and depressive symptoms in clients with a co-occurring mental health condition. Our treatment modalities focus on talk therapy and medication-assisted treatments. The treatment modalities we offer at Coastwise include:
Individual Talk Therapy
Individual talk therapy is a treatment process through which a therapist works with a client in a one-on-one setting, utilizing different therapeutic frameworks to help identify and address specific mental health symptoms.
For example, cognitive-behavioral therapy is a joint framework developed through the combination of cognitive therapies and behavioral therapies. Through CBT, a client learns to identify aberrant or negative thinking patterns, and utilize different methods of distraction, dissociation, and affirmation to lower the frequency and impact of these negative thoughts.
Different therapeutic frameworks utilize different rhetorical and dialectic tools, but the goal of any individual talk therapy treatment is to help people better understand and amend their own thoughts and behaviors, for their own wellbeing.
Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy
Medication-assisted therapy is common in mental health treatment. For example, most cases of depression are treated through both therapy and SSRIs, the most common kind of antidepressant. Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy utilizes the dissociative and psychotropic properties of ketamine to help during a one-on-one therapy session.
Trauma-Informed Therapy
Trauma-informed therapy relies on the six guiding principles of trauma-informed care to better communicate and forge bonds of trust between a therapist and their client, especially when symptoms of anxiety and depression co-occur with traumatic experiences, or other symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. The guiding principles for trauma-informed care are safety, trustworthiness, peer support, collaboration between therapist and client, client choice, and cultural sensitivity.
Why Choose Coastwise?
Coastwise offers a variety of modalities for the treatment of concurrent and complex mental health issues, such as an anxiety disorder with a co-occurring mood disorder. We work with clients and their families throughout every step of the journey, from an initial consultation to long-term post-care correspondence, helping them continue their healing through community resources, peer support, and group therapy.
Get Started with Anxiety & Depression Therapy at Coastwise
We believe in a multimodal, interdisciplinary approach to mental health. We recognize that there are mental, physical, and social factors that affect both mental health disorders and their treatment processes, and that successful management of these disorders requires long-term planning. Our treatments can serve as an introduction to pursuing your own wellbeing, both physically and mentally.
Want to learn more about anxiety & depression therapy, and the different modalities we use here at Coastwise? Don’t hesitate to give us a call via 310-514-2300.