CBT is a popular and effective treatment approach. Self-care from CBT is increasingly used to help people with mild to moderate mental health conditions.
It is well known that depressed individuals lack energy, have difficulty concentrating, and like everyone else, are faced with all sorts of everyday situations. Their apathy often prevents them from taking necessary actions, which sometimes causes them problems (for example, bills piling up). Also, they do not have enough energy to be in solution mode.
Being unable to resolve their problems only maintains and accentuates the depression. They must be able to find solutions. Once again, CBT provides resources to act on problems. Problem-solving grids, which provide good methodology, are fairly easy to find online. Often these grids are combined with self-care focused on behavioral activation or cognitive restructuring.
In general, good tools are structured as follows:
The way we see the problem is paramount to move toward an appropriate solution. A negative perception reduces one's chances of seeing things objectively.
I have seen that a person may see their addiction problem as a threat to their well-being but may still be convinced of their inability to find a solution. If they somehow manage to choose a solution, they often do not make much effort to implement it, since they consider the problem insurmountable—see the trap!
We must pause and work to change the perception so that the person can acquire a more nuanced view, otherwise the process will not work.
It is difficult to find solutions to vague and confusing problems. A poorly defined problem will lead you to partial or inadequate solutions. To properly define the problem, it's important to ask the right questions:
In short, when we become aware of a problem, it is essential to define it concretely and effectively. What matters is to reach effective solutions, right?
The more solutions raised, the greater the chance of finding the right one, the effective one. In practice, if people are left to themselves to do the exercise, few of them will explore more than one solution.
I have realized that to get people to generate more than one solution, we must convince them not to try to evaluate their ideas before submitting them—don’t hold back. It's about getting into brainstorming mode. This way, we generally get a number of solutions, more than one of which can be considered interesting.
If we have more than one solution, this is where we must evaluate them, so bring out the pros and cons of each to choose the best one.
The following questions can help us choose:
By applying these questions to each solution, it becomes possible to identify one that is advantageous for oneself and for others.
This is about taking action and implementing the solution. If it proves successful and meets the objectives we set, then congratulations, and why not reward yourself a little.
If, on the other hand, the solution does not bring relief, you must go back to the decision-making stage and choose another solution!
Amélie, your mental health coach
This article is written based on my personal experience and borrows some elements from the document "Group Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Unipolar Depression", Martin D. Provencher, Ph.D.
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