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Medication and counseling is best.

Should you treat Anxiety & Depression with Medication or Counseling?

by Marlon Familton, LMHC

 

Do you suffer from Anxiety, Depression or both?

Anxiety Symptoms	Depression Symptoms
Sudden overwhelming fear	Difficulty concentrating, remembering
Sweating	Fatigue and lower energy
Racing heart rate	Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, helplessness
Trembling	Hopelessness
Shortness of breath	Can’t sleep, can’t get out of bed
Nausea	Irritable
Dizziness	No interest in previously fun things
Chest Pain	Overeating or loss of appetite
Feeling detached from the world	Feeling empty, sad, alone
Numbness in your limbs	Thoughts of self-harm, thoughts of suicide

 

If so, what should you do? 

Medication is important and often able to successfully help treat serious medical illnesses like diabetes, heart conditions, cancer, asthma, chronic pain, and medically related sleep disorders.  These are all conditions some are born with or acquire.  So when the etiology is from Nature (genetics & neurology):

·         Inherited Mental Illness

·         Physical Illness

·         Birth Trauma

·         Brain Injury

These may be treated effectively with medicine and medical treatments.  In fact, often times, relief from symptoms of a medical illness can help reduce symptoms of depression & anxiety.  

However it is important to understand where medication can and cannot be helpful in the world of mental health.  Thankfully many inherited mental illness can be treated well with medication.  Psychiatric medication helps to rebalance brain chemicals and reduce symptoms.  Yet, when the etiology is from nurture, the person’s environment, medication will not be enough if helpful at all.

How does one’s environment create depression and anxiety?

The entirety of our life experiences shape who we are today. Some potentially distressing life experiences include being raised by abusive, neglectful and addicted parents; growing up in a dysfunctional family; suffering physical & psychological trauma and living through severe poverty.  When the foundations of safety and security are not in place for a child, in order to cope or even survive, this person may develop negative habits and poor mental health.   Problematic personality traits such as low self-esteem, dependency, negativism and distrust and poor coping behavior like avoidance, denial, anger, self-harm, excessive worry and addiction are all common results of this experiential history.

Of course, all these can impact a person’s ability to maintain relationships, which can affect finances, employment, housing stability, family, legal issues, and no medical care.  With even a small part of this happening in one’s life, it is easy to understand why chronic depression, anxiety, isolation occurs and why this collapse is a vicious cycle.  Unfortunately medication will not erase the past, change experiences or remove or alter one’s environment. 

How Counseling can be helpful?

Counseling is needed to help that person gain perspective, clear emotional trauma, problem solve and have a safe place to reflect and share.  Remember: no pill can make you love yourself, be independent, trust others or change your situation. Only you can do that and a good counselor you trust can help.  Along the way medications may help reduce certain symptoms to help us engage more fully in therapy and problem solving.

For most who are seeking help with mental health issues the combination of therapy, problem solving and medicine is the best course. Therapy alone is always helpful.  Sometimes medication is not necessary. Understanding the difference between root, nature or nurture, can be helpful in deciding how to battle depression and anxiety with medication and/or counseling.