Depression Treatment in the UK – How It Works

Depression is characterised by symptoms of low mood, lack of interest in leisure or hobbies, sleeping too much or too little, eating too much or too little, overall lack of self-care, irritability and isolation.

In the United Kingdom, if you experience any of these symptoms over a long period of time, and nothing improves it, it’s recommended that you go to your general practitioner. This is a big step, so if that seems too scary, it might be a good idea to share the way you feel with somebody you are close to that you think might understand. This could be a family member or a friend.

Seeing your GP is a great first step to take. There are plenty of treatment options for people that struggle with depression. Your GP may suggest that you try exercising a little more, or changing your diet. This is because your serotonin levels can increase depending on what you eat and how much you exercise, and serotonin helps to lift and stabilise mood. However, it’s unlikely that they will send you away with just those instructions. Depression can have a huge impact on motivation levels, making it extremely difficult to change your lifestyle straight away.

Most doctors will also offer antidepressants, either the SSRI or SNRI kind. Although others are available, these are the most recently developed medications to choose from. They have reduced side effects (in comparison to older medications). Having said this, side effects vary from person to person and your GP will need to monitor the affect the medication has on you over the first few months that you take them.

Alongside medication, talking therapies are often recommended. Sometimes there is no obvious reason behind depression, but other times events in the past could be having an effect on self-esteem levels. Either way, talking therapies can be extremely useful for managing depression. There are different kinds of talking therapies for depression treatment in UK, with the most commonly known being counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

Counselling can be useful for finding the root of low self-esteem. It can also be good to unload emotional baggage that somebody might feel guilty about sharing with people they know. A counsellor might ask questions that you never thought to ask yourself, allowing you to view things with a different perspective.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is hard work, but worth doing, as it prepares you with mental tools for use in the future. CBT helps you to identify negative thoughts, their effect on you, and why you think those things in certain situations. You are given homework – usually a mood diary to keep track of thoughts and feelings, but also exercises to help gradually lift your self-esteem. It helps you to analyse the thoughts you do have, and decide whether those thoughts are rational or not. For example, somebody with social anxiety might avoid going to parties with friends. When asked what thoughts they have when they think about going to a party, they might say, “I will do something stupid and embarrassing.” This would be an example of, ‘predicting the future’. There is no way of knowing that that will definitely happen, and over time, CBT would help re-train the person’s thinking patterns to be more balanced.