Depression

Suppose we have a setback or suffer some traumatic event that interferes with getting our innate needs met. This easily arouses negative expectations in the autonomic nervous system — feelings of frustration, being 'stressed', anxiety, anger, guilt etc. — but, instead of taking action to bring the arousal down, which is what the autonomic nervous system is designed to help us do, we start to worry, misusing our imagination by going over and over what's troubling us: 'why did I lose that job?'... 'what is going to happen to me?' ... 'how am I going to pay my bills?' on and on creating a mountain of negative expectations. This over-stimulates the autonomic arousal system, which is why depression is such a strong emotion.

Depressed or anxious people should not have forms of counselling or psychotherapy that encourages introspection or emotional arousal. Research shows this is often unintentionally harmful.

HG therapists employ techniques from various therapies that have proven to be effective — interpersonal, cognitive behavioural, solution focused — plus they add the new knowledge you have just read above that shows the importance of vividly creating new expectations in the mind of the patient to 'kick-start' them again.

Read more about depression