Working With Clients with Depression Part Two
In the last article I identified the key behaviours of people in a ‘depressed state”. Some people would find it hard to believe that we “get” ourselves into that state – others will see how stress and sadness can permeate and evolve into something which then becomes a practiced behaviour which can be difficult to pull ourselves out of. Pain, anger, resentment and sadness can contribute to a stuck state.
Some people go in and out of the depressed state, yet forget when they have been spontaneously distracted into a happy one during the day, or laughed and felt good. By habit they may go back to the depressed state and continue with it. Some people claim depression as a great “victim strategy” because of the attention, care and compassion they may get from others. I have heard someone telling everyone quite proudly that they were “clinically depressed” while socialising and having fun, flirting and partying! Go figure!
As mentioned in the earlier article, depression mostly resolves spontaneously in most cases after a few months! And some needs help. So if depression is an unresourceful state – how does someone move from that to a more resourceful one?
Well first of all they have to want to get out of it and be willing to do things differently to change. Most people have a natural desire to not be depressed. Lets look at some of the behaviours and ways they can help themselves through a program of actions that change the way they are doing their “life”, in consultation with the therapist.
NB: Rescuing someone from depression does not help them out of being depressed. One person cannot make another feels good, even when that one person knows all the tricks of NLP. The belief that the depressed person needs another person to save them is depression. They need to do the actions and changes themselves to prove they can change.
Actions which the consulting NLPer can use. (there is a whole process around all these strategies… this is an abridged, snippet of each process.
1. Reframe anxiety and its symptoms – Using metamodel helps the person chunk down. The consultant can teach the person to use it on themselves to challenge their global thinking. The most useful questions to ask are solution focused. “What would need to happen for you to feel that this problem is solved?” is an example of a solution focussed question.
2. Change Submodalities so that the focus shifts to Happiness - Teaching the person to make submodality shifts changing their experiences into more useful ones. No-one has 100% miserable days every day of their life. At some time this person has laughed, felt good and enjoyed experiences. Once they realise they have resources, and are taught how to access them they can shift quite quickly.
3. Create a More Flexible Time Orientation -(From past into future orientation) Continuing the solution focussed questions with a future orientation – e.g. What are three things that you are looking forward to today?” What do you want to achieve today? Time-line techniques help with this. Helping them heal the past begins with the suggestion that the problem needs to be dealt with. Then they tend to turn to the future which is where we want them to be.
4. Alter the Clients Auditory Digital Strategies - Auditory digital strategies are the playing negative internal dialogue (self talk) inside their head over and over in a loop. This is done by changing the submodalities of the self talk, maybe making the voice change, the pitch and maybe using a Donald Duck voice to make the talk silly. Replacing the self talk with positive self talk and installing it for them to access and use themselves whenever they need to.
5. Create the Physiology of Happiness - Have the person design a program that involves 15 minutes of strenuous exercise or movement each day. This elevates mood. They see they are changing and are “at cause.” Laughing vigorously helps also. “We don’t laugh because we are happy, We are happy because we laugh” – William James’ insightfully wrote. Laughter boosts immunoglobulin levels, restores energy lowers blood pressure and reduces stress. (Dr. Robert Holden , 1993).
6. Keeping the person at Cause - The consultant builds expectancy from the first session, indirectly. Have the person set and achieve goals, which are small and more-than realistic. They need to see the positive changes at home. Reframing experiences based on the pre-supposition of them being at cause. One the person realises things can change they will end the depression.
There are many NLP strategies which an NLP Practitioner can work with a client to turn their thinking and doing around towards a happier more useful state.
This is taken from some great stuff by Dr Richard Bolstad, of Transformations Ltd. (NLP and the Rediscovery of Happiness.)
Zoe Wilkinson is a Master Practitioner, NLP. She has a practice in Tauranga, New Zealand and offers Training, Coaching and Therapy using NLP techniques, tools and strategies.
