Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Optimization

Coping with depression

I have a close relative who has dealt with depression. Honestly, coping with her condition was an overwhelming experience for all family members and friends, but all the same, we were compelled to do so for her to regain herself. Most often, we organized family gatherings just for her to help her reach out to her loved ones and stay connected. We could encourage her to take part in family activities, even though she was often reluctant to do so. We often engaged her in friendly discussions where we evaluated how she felt, the causes of her feelings, what made her happy and what worsened her situation. From the assessment, we would advise her to often engage in activities that made her happy and told her to pay minimum attention to situations that worsened her condition, as illustrated by Bockting et al. (2015). Even though we knew that the family was the key for her to get well, we also organized therapy sessions with psychiatric specialists who gave her professional attention. Thank God, her condition improved considerably.

Negative thoughts and how they have been dealt with

From the experience of my relative, negative thoughts impact significantly on how one interacts with other people and life situations around her in several ways. Her focuses on negative thoughts made her tend to isolate herself, hindering her from participating in social functions, including work and family gatherings where people meet and interact. She could not constantly attend to her duties in the workplace due to fear of meeting with friends who, according to her, could only sympathize with her and make her situation even worse. On the other side, her concentration on her negative features and experiences seemed to have underestimated her positive characteristics and her ability to solve problems. As a result, she found it difficult to participate in family meetings and functions as she could feel embarrassed. She regarded herself as insignificant regardless of numerous efforts from family members to make her feel highly recognized and cared for. In an attempt to help her to deal with the thoughts, several strategies, as proposed by Bockting et al. (2015), were employed to help her achieve a more balanced view of things. We helped her to make a list of her best features, which we told her to read whenever she would find herself focusing on pessimistic thoughts. Through conversations, we made her to recall pleasant occasions in her past and helped her to plan enjoyable events for the future. Most importantly, we made her keep herself busy doing useful activities.

Helping one avoid four pitfalls

Depression can really affect the way someone thinks about themselves, others, or the world around them. These thinking problems, also known as biased thinking or pitfalls, change the way someone sees a situation. According to Bockting et al. (2015), the first step toward helping one to overcome biased thinking is through helping them to identify and challenge such thinking problems. For instance, regarding overgeneralization, one is required to identify what makes them to contemplate themselves or a situation as bad for just having had a single negative experience. On the other hand, filtering entails ignoring the positives and hearing the negatives, and it will be essential to recognize what one prefers to hear or to ignore. Also, helping one identify why they catastrophize, see minor detrimental mistakes or events as a colossal disaster is significant (Bockting et al., 2015). It is depicted that helping an individual to recognize their thinking pitfalls can facilitate them to begin challenging such thoughts by asking themselves what the evidence indicates. Also, they should be supported in evaluating whether they considered all the information and looking for more helpful ways to perceive situations. Challenging a thinking pitfall helps in finding a realistic thought.

References

Bockting, C. L., Hollon, S. D., Jarrett, R. B., Kuyken, W., & Dobson, K. (2015). A lifetime approach to major depressive disorder: The contributions of psychological interventions in preventing relapse and recurrence. Clinical Psychology Review, 41, 16-26.