†Anyone with suicidal urges should seek immediate consultation with a qualified psychologist or psychiatrist
ŧ Scoring key included on other side. Please refer to this key to determine your degree (if any) of depression.
Scoring Key for Depression
Total Score
Degree of Depression
0 – 4
Minimal or no depression
5 – 10
Borderline depression
11 – 20
Mild depression
21 – 30
Moderate depression
31 – 45
Severe depression
What is Depression?
If you are depressed, I'll bet that you can tell me what the symptoms are but I'll bet just as much that you don't know what depression actually is. Did you know that depression is anger turned inward towards yourself? Again, I will bet, if you are depressed that you continually "beat yourself up" mentally, continually giving yourself negative self-talk. Also, my guess would be that there may be some perfectionism and/or people pleasing involved, along with anxiety of some sort.
If you are in therapy for depression and finding ways to permanently release these continual negatives thoughts, then you are getting good therapy. If you are not finding ways to release these negative thoughts permanently, then you should probably move on to get therapy from someone who knows how to help you do just that.
These negative thoughts come from your negative thoughts/beliefs about yourself and the world around you. As a matter of fact, those negative thoughts/beliefs about yourself = your negative feelings = your negative/dysfunctional behaviors. All of our negative thoughts/beliefs come from trauma, either real or perceived. When we form a negative belief from this trauma, it becomes a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy in that what the negative belief is that you start out with, it will always follow the pattern of negative thoughts/beliefs = negative feelings = negative/dysfunctional behaviors. Even if we say positive affirmations over and over, it may temporarily give you some relief, but the negative feelings and behaviors will not go away forever until the negative thought/belief is released.
I learned in E.M.D.R. (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing - to get a better understanding of what this is go to "E.M.D.R." on my home page) that once you process and let go of the trauma that caused the negative thoughts/beliefs, negative feelings and negative behaviors then you will let go of those negative thoughts/beliefs, feelings and behavior FOREVER.
I will use myself as an example. When I was 8 years old, I almost drown in my hometown lake. I was going down for the third time which, at that age, I was aware that I would die if somebody didn't come in for me. But, I pulled out, and very thankful indeed, but, from that point on, for decades, I never went out swimming over my head, and when I did swim, I would swim very fast in short spirts, convincing myself that I did so because it was the best way to get good exercise. When I went to the E.M.D.R. training a number of years ago now, I processed this trauma of my almost drowning and realized only then that my quick spirts of swimming were caused by my being afraid of sinking, linking back thirty years at that time to when I was 8 years old. After I processed that trauma at the training, I went into the local lake the next day and not only went out over my head while swimming, I swam all the way out to the dock in a very leisurely manner, and did so amongst some very thick and slimy weeds.
Such is an example of negative thoughts/beliefs causing negative feelings causing negative behaviors (for a big portion of my life). This drowning trauma was the result of a rather simple trauma (not discounting it large and longterm effect of me) simply that after I processed this trauma, in one session, I also released the negative behaviors (the not allowing myself to enjoy swimming in quick spirts over short periods of time and not going out over my head). Immediately after processing this trauma I was able to swim normally.
An example of a more complex trauma that wreaked havoc on my life for close to 40 years and more was my belief that I was stupid. When I was 10 years old or so and going from 6th grade into 7th grade, my mother and stepfather found out from my school that I was going into the Honors Program in 7th grade because I had done so well in elementary school. My stepfather was particularly miffed when he heard the news. We didn't get along very well to begin with since he married my mother when I was five, and this just seemed to put him over the top. His sons were older than me and both were in high school vocational programs. My older brother was in College Prep and my going into an Honors Program just seemed to be too much for my stepfather. From that point on, he found a way to call me stupid or show me that I was stupid in some way what seemed to be an average of five times a day. The constant barrage of his abusive in this way "made me feel" more and more stupid as the years went by. In 7th grade I was in Honors, in 8th grade I went to a "lower" class (prehonors). In 9th grade I went even lower to college prep. As I continued through high school I sank lower and lower in my academic standing until by the end of 12th grade my guidance counselor said I would be lucky to get into a trade school of some kind. It took me four colleges and twenty years to get my Bachelor's Degree (at 40 yrs. old).
At forty I was back on top, getting into Columbia University after achieving Summa Cum Laude in Social Work in the last college I attended to get my Bachelor's Degree. However, when I graduated from my Social Work program I still didn't attend my graduation. I didn't give that great accomplishment to myself then. Three years later I went to the Columbia University book store, bought myself one of those tassles that go on a graduation cap and hung it on my mirror in my car. This was when I was 43 years old.
I tell this story because it is the apitame of what a negative belief can do to someone, even though the negative belief was not true at all. As a matter of fact, the truth was the complete opposite of the negative belief that I was stupid. What started me on the path of believing that I was stupid started when my stepfather got jealous and systematically conditioned me to think I was stupid when he heard I got into the Honors Program in 7th grade.
In the beginning of this section, I called this a more complex trauma. By that I mean that it was my stepfather's systematic abuse over years that made me "lose" my intelligence. To let go of this complex series of traumas, it took a lot more than one or two E.M.D.R. sessions to let go of the trauma, therefore letting go of the negative belief of being stupid.
So, depression is anger turned inward, and depression comes from a more complex series of things in our lives that make us dislike ourselves over time and then we take on the need to talk negatively to ourselves, more and more, until we do it all the time. It has been researched that the average person has something like 60,000 negative thoughts per day and about 80% of those are negative. So, if you are depressed, you are somewhere above this 80% of negative thoughts per day.
All of the therapeutic methods that I use help you to release these negative thoughts FOREVER!!!!
Give me a call. I know I can help you!
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How Depressed are you?
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The Burns Depression Inventory*
Instructions: Place a check þ in the box to the right of each of the 15 symptom clusters to indicate how much
this type of feeling has been bothering you in the past several days. Make sure you answer all the
questions. If you feel unsure about any, put down your best guess.
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1. Sadness: Have been feeling sad or down in the dumps?
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2. Discouragement: Does the future look hopeless?
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3. Low self-esteem: Do you feel worthless or think of yourself as a failure?
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4. Inferiority: Do you feel inadequate or inferior to others?
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5. Guilt: Do you get self-critical and blame yourself for everything?
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6. Indecisiveness: Do you have trouble making up your mind about things?
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7. Irritability and frustration: Have you been feeling resentful and angry a good deal of the time?
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8. Loss of interest in life: Have you lost interest in your career, your hobbies, your family or your friends?
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9. Loss of Motivation: Do you feel overwhelmed and have to push yourself hard to do things?
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10. Poor self-image: Do you think you’re looking old or unattractive?
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11. Appetite Changes: Have you lost your appetite? Or do you overeat or binge compulsively?
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12. Sleep changes: Do you suffer from insomnia and find it hard to get a good night’s sleep? Or are you excessively tired and sleeping too much?
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13. Loss of libido: Have you lost your interest in sex?
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14. Hypochondriasis: Do you worry a great deal about your health?
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15. Suicidal impulses† : Do you have thoughts that life is not worth living or think that you might be better off dead?
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ŧ Add up your total score for the 15 symptom clusters and record it here:_________