Self-Management of Depression

What is Reminiscence? According to the Oxford Dictionary, to reminiscence is to “indulge in the enjoyable recollection of past events.” Interestingly, embedded in the definition of reminiscence is the positive emotion of joy. Reminiscing is more than just flipping through an old photograph album; it also involves reflection and reconstructing your memories. It is a process of discovering and re-discovering who you are today by making linkages between disparate aspects of your life, your families, and your communities (Gibson, 2011). You can reminiscence in various forms – mental image, speech, writing, poetry, drawing, painting, drama, mime, music, dance, or some other medium of communication. Literature on reminiscence identifies two types of positive reminiscence that lead to well-being and decrease in depressive symptoms (Watt & Cappeliez, 2000; Wong & Watt, 1991): 1. Integrative reminiscence: This involves accepting one’s past as worthwhile, reconciling the discrepancy...

              Popular self-help books try to convince you that you can improve your self-worth in 10 days. It's not that simple. Let's get to the definition of self-worth first. The American Psychological Association's Dictionary of Psychology defines self-worth as an "individual’s evaluation of himself or herself as a valuable, capable human being deserving of respect and consideration." The more positive feelings of self-worth an individual has, the higher their self-esteem is, while persistent low self-worth can be a symptom of depression. As can be gleaned, the definition of self-worth is highly subjective, and it is not uncommon for people to harbor faulty notions about their self-worth. Your thinking may get skewed into believing that your self-worth is restricted to your performance in certain areas of life that are of special personal importance to you, such as work, family life, or intellectual pursuits. You then mistakenly start defining...

We all like getting approval and recognition from others. Approval-seeking is good as long as it remains a desire or a want. For example, your boss approves of your work and you feel happy about it. When approval-seeking turns into a need or a necessity, then you become a victim of the “approval trap” that will either make you vulnerable for depression or, if you are already feeling depressed, will make your depression worse. If you have low self-esteem, which is not uncommon in depression, and seek approval to give yourself a temporary boost, then you are setting yourself up for the “approval trap.” The trap works somewhat like this:    Depression causes you to feel worthless → when you get approval from others, you feel better and less worthless → you try to seek more approval → in seeking more approval, you do things you don’t want to do to please others and avoid your own needs → others get used to your approval-seeking behavior and stop approving your behavior → you ...

Feelings of worthlessness and low self-esteem represent key symptoms of depression.  Self-worth is how you value yourself as a human being or your overall opinion of yourself. Self-worth has also been equated with self-respect – having respect for one’s abilities. People with depression experience feelings of worthlessness or low self-esteem in thoughts as: “I am worthless” “I am inadequate” “I am incompetent” “I am bad” “I am a failure” “I am a loser” “I am ugly” “I am no good” “I am immoral” “I am stupid” “I am a fake” In depression, most thoughts of worthlessness represent irrational thinking patterns such as all-or-none thinking, overgeneralization, labeling (putting negative labels on self), and magnification (blowing things out of proportion). For example, you get an average evaluation in one area of your job performance compared to above average in other areas and you start feeling that you are incompetent. Or worthlessness can be also be trigge...