Coping Strategies You’ll Learn in Rehab for Depression

Journaling, or writing down your feelings and thoughts, can be helpful for depression relief.

Rehab can be incredibly beneficial to someone suffering from severe depression. In rehab for depression, a patient will be taught many coping strategies that will help with the symptoms of their condition.

Therapy

Therapy will be one of the most important aspects of the rehab experience for someone suffering from depression. The University of Health Services at Berkley states that “counseling or psychotherapy is often the best place to start,” and rehab facilities will usually provide patients with many therapy options.

Therapists often have many coping strategies patients can utilize while in a rehab center or on their own. Some include:

• WRITING: People can get out a lot of feelings by writing, especially when they do not believe anyone will read what they write down. They might be more honest on paper than when speaking initially to a therapist, and they could even express feelings they didn’t know were there. It could help immensely in finding some of the causes or factors of the depression.
• RECOGNIZE AND NEUTRALIZE NEGATIVE THINKING: Depression is often fed by our own feelings of not being good enough for whatever reason. Many therapists will try to help a person notice when he or she is having negative thoughts before they become worse and more devastating.
• BOOST POSITIVE THINKING: At the same time, the patients will be taught to work harder to think positively about themselves and to look at themselves in a positive light. Therapists will often ask patients to list some of their good qualities or counteract negative thoughts with positive ones.
• SET GOALS: Therapists encourage setting goals which gives the patient something to focus on other than the depression and also a sense of satisfaction, even when the smallest goal is reached.

There are many coping strategies that therapists will teach patients who are suffering from depression. That way, even if the patient is not in therapy, he or she is still actively working through the feelings of depression every day and not just while in the session.

Other Coping Strategies

Whether in therapy sessions, classes, or group, many other coping strategies are taught in rehab.

• DIET/NUTRITION: Eating right can go a long way toward helping someone fight depression. Some rehab facilities have health classes to teach patients that consuming healthy foods, and staying away from unhealthy foods and depressants like alcohol, are natural ways to fight depression.
• EXERCISE: As stated by Helpguide.org, “exercises boost[s] serotonin, endorphins, and other feel-good brain chemicals” which gives it an effect similar to medication. Exercise will definitely help a person with depression stay more active and start to feel better about him or herself.
• REACH OUT: One of the most important things a person suffering from depression can do is to keep from becoming isolated by reaching out. The National Institute of Mental Health states that therapy will urge the individual to “try to spend time with other people and confide in a trusted friend or relative.”

Rehab will focus on many different aspects of life, attempting to teach sufferers of depression coping strategies which they may take into their daily lives. This is extremely important, as depression can often be an ongoing battle. Turning to these strategies and more can be incredibly beneficial when fighting depression.