Articles Submitted to the Blurbosphere

All people experience feelings of sadness. For most people, these times persist for a few hours or days. Up to one-fifth of the people in the world, however, struggle with major depression, which causes depression that lasts for weeks, months, or longer. These moods trigger the development of impaired functioning in career, family, or social relationships, which can become disabling.

Women who experience symptoms of depression when they become pregnant may be treated for perinatal depression. This problem can begin any time after pregnancy begins, and up till the infant is a year old. Typically, however, women who encounter this condition after childbirth are diagnosed with postpartum depression.

Perinatal depression or postpartum depression may be caused by several factors. These factors can be physiological. For example, mothers who have a previous or family history of major depression or other mental health problems are more likely to experience perinatal depression or postpartum depression. Furthermore, alterations in hormone levels in postpartum mothers, such as drops in estrogen and progesterone levels, can cause this condition. Postpartum thyroid malfunctions can cause symptoms of depression such as tiredness, irritability, and despair.

At times, mental depression results from psychological issues. Mothers may feel fatigued and stressed in learning to cope with the needs of the new baby. These issues are further strengthened by the absence of assistance from family, friends, or significant other. Financial issues can also contribute to the development of postpartum depression.

Perinatal depression and postpartum depression often have grave outcomes for both the woman and her infant. Anxiety and depression can prevent a woman from connecting fully with her child or being capable of meeting her child's physiological and psychological requirements. This can worsen the woman's feelings of worthlessness, guilt, and low self-worth.

The infant is also harmed by the new mother's problems. Failure to bond with his or her mother can result in the baby to experience trust issues in personal attachments throughout life. Further, children who do not have their physiological or psychological requirements met often fail to grow and develop normally. This problem, described as "failure to thrive," can be quite harmful or even deadly to the infant.

Perinatal depression or postpartum depression can harm everyone in the family. The spouse or significant other often feels neglected or unable to help these depression symptoms. This can severely wound the partnership. Other children in the family may have comparable emotions, and develop academic or peer problems as well.

Depression harms the whole family. For this reason, mothers experiencing perinatal depression or postpartum depression should get depression treatment as quickly as possible. Several approaches can be used, such as counseling and drug treatments. Medications, however, are sometimes risky for nursing infants, and often have unpredictable results due to the great hormone variations a woman experiences during these tumultuous times. Moreover, typical counseling approaches are usually lengthy and expensive.

Two approaches for dealing with depression that do not use medications and often quickly demonstrate incredibly effective results are hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Traditional Hypnotherapy is most effective for clients who can be effortlessly entranced or are capable of accepting ideas without needing to analyze or understand them. Ericksonian hypnosis is very useful for those who tend to overanalyze. These therapies assist people to relax and eliminate tension.

For people who tend to be more critical or analytical thinkers, NLP is typically more effective. With this technique, trained practitioners give people depression help by teaching them to reprogram their thought processes. This method can, very literally, assist an individual think through the depressive state and overcome it.

Individuals can overcome depression by learning NLP strategies such as anchoring. They are taught to think of moments when they were happy and controlled their situations. Recalling the memory revives these emotions. Clients are taught to put two fingers together and remember these feelings. The subconscious mind connects the touch of the two fingers with the emotions. Thus, the finger touch becomes an "anchor."

Then, when the person starts to become stressed, he or she activates the anchor by touching these identical two fingers together again. This brings back emotions of self-control and results in empowerment.

By using another approach called the Flash, people learn to think away negative feelings. They instruct their subconscious minds to automatically substitute positive thoughts for negative ones. As negative thoughts arise, the brain automatically substitutes them for positive thoughts. After developing this technique, people find it nearly impossible to think negative thoughts!

Summary: Perinatal depression and postpartum depression often have harmful results for a woman and her new child. The rest of the family is also profoundly affected by these conditions. Because of the possible significance of the outcomes of this illness, new mothers with depression should get help as soon as symptoms begin. Two very effective treatments that do not use medication or enormous expenditures of time and financial resources are hypnosis and NLP.

Alan B. Densky, CH specializes in stress and depression related symptoms as a certified hypnotherapist and NLP Practitioner. During his 30-year career he's helped thousands of clients. He offers CDs for hypnosis therapy for depression. Visit his Neuro-VISION hypnosis for self help website for the hypnosis article repository, or watch his free videos on hypnosis.