If you or someone close to you is struggling with depression, you know that treatment options can be limited, and traditional treatment is often fraught with unwanted side effects from medication. However, there are alternative depression treatment options today that are more easily accessible, including virtual mental health care.
Traditional vs. Alternative Depression Treatment
When it comes to depression, traditional treatment options include antidepressant medication and therapy.
Medications
Antidepressant medications are usually SSRIs, designed to prevent your brain from reabsorbing the serotonin it produces for specific lengths of time. Under normal circumstances, your brain will produce serotonin and then reabsorb it on a fixed schedule, but if you don’t have enough serotonin, this type of medication can help increase the levels that are released at any given time by inhibiting this reabsorption process.
Unfortunately, long-term reliance on this type of medication can cause an individual to develop treatment-resistant depression where the medications are no longer effective.
Additionally, these medications at any stage can cause serious side effects, not least of which include weight gain, increased depression, and suicidal thoughts.
Therapy
Therapy for depression is usually cognitive behavioral therapy. This can take the form of individual or group therapy. However, cognitive behavioral therapy for depression is usually a 12-week course, something where you have three structured segments to your treatment plan, and each week, you go through one aspect of that structure with additional homework assignments in between your sessions.
As such, the therapy that is most popular in treating depression is not something that you can rely on long-term but rather, a stepping stone, a place that helps you build your foundation for recovery and gives you the tools you need to find a long-term strategy for changing your attitude toward your mental health disorder and learning to control symptoms instead of letting them control you.
Group therapy is often more affordable and accessible for people, whether they have completed an individual treatment plan or not. However, individual therapy works more toward helping identify personal causes of depression or underlying factors, while group therapy offers support and education for everyone in the group and a place to safely share and learn from one another, but you don’t get as much one-on-one attention.
Support groups are another offshoot of therapy that is available for people with depression. These are support groups specifically for depression where all individuals have familiarity with the condition and can get together to discuss and learn from one another. These are generally run by an appointed individual, though, and not necessarily a licensed therapist, as is the case with group therapy.
Alternative Depression Treatment
So what can you do if you don’t want to rely on medication long-term and you’ve completed therapy but are now done with your prescribed plan?
This is where alternative depression treatment can serve a profound role. Alternative depression treatment offers things like virtual life skills coaching and mental health coaching that pick up where your foundation of CBT might have left off, giving you ongoing support, skills, and team members with whom you can communicate no matter where you are.
This type of alternative depression treatment also offers flexible scheduling and virtual sessions that you can access when your symptoms are worse, when you have been triggered, or when you anticipate something that might cause your depression to come back.
Finding Alternative Depression Treatment with Aligned Living
Virtual mental health treatment can be a great solution for those who are struggling to find the motivation to get out of bed or leave the house, even those who are just dealing with the struggle to stay positive and use coping skills to overcome symptoms.
At Aligned Living, we provide an extensive virtual aftercare program so that you can access support when you need it, from where you need it. You get to connect to people who understand what you are going through in a non-judgmental and safe space, from the comfort of your home or anywhere else you happen to be.
Our goals are to help you address the underlying issues contributing to depression and any co-occurring conditions. With a personalized approach to mental health recovery, you will get clear information about your services, the opportunity to build trust with our team, and access to highly accommodating virtual care.