Therapy for depression
Depression can affect not only how you feel, but also how you experience yourself, your relationships, and the world around you. In therapy, you can receive help in understanding what may be contributing to how you feel and work with what needs to change.
You are welcome to contact licensed psychologist Maria Sandgren for therapy sessions in Östermalm, Stockholm, or online.
Depression and low mood
Depression can take different forms. For many people, it involves low mood, reduced energy, and a loss of interest in things that previously felt important or meaningful. It can become difficult to experience joy, engagement, or hope, and even things that would normally be easy may require considerable effort.
For some, depression leads them to withdraw from relationships and activities. Others remain active and appear to function as usual, while at the same time carrying a sense of emptiness, loneliness, or lack of meaning.
Depression may arise during a difficult period in life or develop more gradually. For some, it is a single episode, while others experience recurring periods of depression or have lived with low mood for a long time.
Understanding depression
In therapy, we explore how depression manifests itself in your particular life and what may have contributed to how you feel. This may involve long-term stress, difficult relationships, loss, or traumatic experiences, but sometimes the connections are less clear and need to be understood over time.
We also explore what happens within you when you become depressed. Are there situations in which the depression deepens? How are your relationships affected? What happens to your emotions, your thoughts, and the way you see yourself?
Depression is often associated with self-criticism. Thoughts about not being good enough, having failed, or being a burden to others can take up a great deal of space. When such thoughts are repeated, they can easily become part of how you see yourself rather than something you can observe and question.
When depression limits your life
When depression continues over a longer period, it often affects both psychological and physical well-being. Sleep, concentration, memory, and motivation may be affected, and it can become difficult to find the energy for relationships, work, and things you previously enjoyed doing.
What matters in life may gradually feel further away. You may long for closeness but withdraw from others, want to feel engaged but lack the energy, or wish for change without being able to imagine how change could be possible.
Anxiety and worry also commonly occur alongside depression. When both worry and self-criticism take up a great deal of space, it can become increasingly difficult to stay in touch with what you yourself need, want, and value.
The aim of therapy for depression
The aim of therapy is not only to reduce depressive symptoms. We also try to understand what has made it difficult to live your life in the way you would like and what may be standing in the way of change.
As depression begins to lift, your connection with your emotional life may also change. Emotions that were previously difficult to approach may become clearer, while self-criticism and hopelessness may take up less space.
Change can mean regaining interest and engagement, being more present with others, or developing greater confidence in your own abilities. It may also involve being able to feel grief for what has been lost, anger about what has been difficult, or joy and care in relationships that matter to you.
What change can bring
When depression no longer limits life in the same way, it may become possible to reconnect with things that once felt far away – relationships, interests, creativity, work, or other parts of life that are meaningful to you.
Change does not mean always feeling happy or positive. Rather, it is about regaining access to a broader emotional life and a greater capacity to engage with what is happening.
The aim is for you to feel more connected to yourself and others, have more energy and agency, and be able to move towards what gives your life meaning and direction.
Affect-focused therapy for depression
In affect-focused therapy, we explore together what you would like help with and what happens within you as we approach situations and experiences that are meaningful to you. We pay attention to emotions, but also to anxiety, self-criticism, and other ways of managing what has become difficult.
In depression, emotions may be difficult to access or distinguish. Instead, there may be a more general sense of low mood, emptiness, or meaninglessness. For others, self-critical thoughts take over and are directed towards the self: I should be different. I am not good enough. Things will never change.
An important part of therapy may then be to explore together what is happening beneath these reactions. What emotions arise in relationships and situations that matter to you? What happens to these emotions? And how does this affect the way you see and treat yourself?
Reconnecting with emotions and engagement
Emotions can provide us with information about what matters to us. Grief can help us understand what we have lost, anger can alert us to boundaries and injustice, and love and care can show us which relationships we value.
When emotions become associated with anxiety or, for various reasons, become difficult to approach, emotional life may instead become more restricted. For some people, self-criticism, rumination, or withdrawal may then take up more space.
In therapy, we explore these patterns as they arise. When it becomes possible to approach and process emotions without anxiety or self-criticism taking over, the way you relate to yourself and others can also begin to change.
Therapy is therefore both about reducing the limitations imposed by depression and about reconnecting more fully with emotions, relationships, and what makes life feel alive and meaningful.
Therapy for depression
I have extensive experience working with depression and low mood, and I meet you with an understanding of how these difficulties affect your particular life. Together, we explore what you would like help with and what kind of therapeutic approach may be right for you.
I see clients at my practice in Östermalm, Stockholm, and also offer online sessions.
Maria Sandgren · Licensed Psychologist · PhD in Psychology
Certified ISTDP Therapist