Article Avenue - free articles and downloads - Overcoming Perinatal And Postpartum Feelings Of Hopelessness

All people experience feelings of sadness. In most cases, these feelings persist for only hours or days. Up to twenty percent of the world's population, however, are diagnosed with major depression, in which these moods last several days, weeks, or months. These emotions trigger the development of difficulties functioning in work, family, or social relationships, which can become disabling.

Women who experience signs of depression after becoming pregnant may be treated for perinatal depression. This condition may develop at any point after pregnancy begins, or any time thereafter, until the infant is one year old. Usually, however, those who develop this illness after the child is born are diagnosed with postpartum depression.

Perinatal depression or postpartum depression is linked with a number of factors. These factors can be physical. For instance, females who have a previous or familial history of major depression or other mental health problems are more susceptible to developing perinatal depression or postpartum depression. In addition, hormonal changes in postpartum mothers, like drops in estrogen and progesterone levels, can cause depression. Postpartum thyroid malfunctions sometimes result in signs of depression such as tiredness, irritability, and hopelessness.

Sometimes, mental depression results from emotional factors. Women may feel fatigued and stressed in learning to manage the demands made by the new baby. Such issues are often strengthened by the absence of assistance from family, friends, or significant other. Financial issues may also assist in causing postpartum depression.

Perinatal depression and postpartum depression often have serious consequences for both the woman and the new baby. Anxiety and depression may prevent a woman from connecting fully with her child or being capable of meeting her baby's physical and emotional requirements. This may increase the mother's sense of insignificance, self-blame, and self-doubt.

The infant is also harmed by the woman's problems. Failure to bond with his or her mom may cause the baby to experience trust issues in emotional attachments throughout life. In addition, infants who do not have their physical or emotional requirements met typically do not grow and develop properly. This condition, described as "failure to thrive," may be quite harmful or even fatal to the infant.

Perinatal depression or postpartum depression can affect everyone in the family. The spouse or partner can feel neglected or unable to decrease these depression symptoms. This can irreparably damage the partnership. Other children in the family may have similar feelings, and have academic or peer problems as well.

Depression harms the entire family. For this reason, women experiencing perinatal depression or postpartum depression need to get depression treatment as soon as possible. Many approaches are available, such as talk therapy and drug therapy. Medicines, however, can be dangerous for nursing infants, and often have erratic outcomes due to the wide hormone variations a woman experiences during these hectic months. Furthermore, typical counseling treatments can be lengthy and expensive.

Two approaches for dealing with depression that do not involve medicines and may quickly show dramatically effective outcomes are hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP. Traditional Hypnotherapy is most effective for clients who are effortlessly entranced or able to accept ideas without needing to analyze or comprehend them. Ericksonian Hypnotherapy is quite useful for persons who often overanalyze. These techniques encourage individuals to unwind and get rid of stress.

For those who are more critical or analytical individuals, NLP is typically more effective. Through NLP, trained practitioners offer individuals depression help by helping them to reprogram their thought processes. This technique can, quite literally, assist an individual think past the depressive condition and conquer it.

Clients can conquer depression by developing NLP strategies like anchoring. They are taught to think of occasions when they felt happy and controlled their situations. Remembering the event renews these feelings. Individuals are taught to touch two fingers together and remember these feelings. The subconscious mind associates the touch of the two fingers with the feelings. Therefore, the finger touch becomes an "anchor."

Then, if the individual begins to feel stressed, he or she triggers the anchor by touching these same two fingers together again. This brings back feelings of self-control and generates empowerment.

Through another technique known as the Flash, individuals learn to reason away negative feelings. They instruct their subconscious minds to automatically substitute positive thoughts for negative ones. When negative thoughts arise, the brain automatically substitutes them for positive thoughts. After learning this method, individuals find it almost impossible to conjure up negative thoughts!

Summary: Perinatal depression and postpartum depression may have harmful results for a woman and her new child. The remainder of the family is also profoundly affected by these conditions. Because of the probable significance of the consequences of this disorder, new mothers with depression need to get help as soon as signs develop. Two quite effective treatments that do not use medicine or great outlays of time and financial resources are hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

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Alan B. Densky, CH specializes in stress and depression related symptoms as a certified hypnotist and NLP Practitioner. During his 30-year career he's helped thousands of clients. He offers CDs for self-hypnosis depression therapy. Visit his Neuro-VISION hypnosis website for the hypnosis article index, or watch his free videos on hypnosis.

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