NLP & Hypnosis Can Help Overcome Perinatal And Postpartum Hopelessness - By: Alan Densky

All people experience feelings of sadness. For most people, these times last for a few hours or days. Almost twenty percent of the world's population, however, experience clinical depression, which causes depression that lasts for weeks, months, or longer. These feelings trigger the development of difficulties functioning in work, family, or interpersonal relationships, which can become severe.

Females who experience symptoms of depression after they become pregnant are sometimes diagnosed with perinatal depression. This problem can begin any time after pregnancy begins, or any time thereafter, until the infant is a year old. Most commonly, however, women who encounter this problem after childbirth are diagnosed with postpartum depression.

Perinatal depression or postpartum depression is linked with a number of factors. These factors may be physical. For instance, women with a personal or familial history of severe depression or other mental health problems are very susceptible to developing perinatal depression or postpartum depression. Moreover, alterations in hormone levels in postpartum mothers, like decreases in estrogen and progesterone levels, can result in this condition. After childbirth, thyroid problems may result in signs of depression such as tiredness, irritability, and hopelessness.

Sometimes, mental depression results from emotional issues. Women often feel fatigued and overwhelmed as they learn to juggle the needs of the new child. Such issues are further increased by a lack of support from family, friends, or significant other. Financial problems can also help to cause postpartum depression.

Perinatal depression and postpartum depression may have grave outcomes for both the mother and her infant. Worry and depression can hinder a mother from bonding fully with her infant or being capable of meeting her baby's physical and emotional requirements. This can worsen the woman's emotions of worthlessness, guilt, and low self-worth.

The child is also affected by the new mother's problems. An inability to bond with his or her mother can result in the baby to experience trust problems in personal relationships throughout life. Further, babies who do not have their physical or emotional requirements met typically fail to grow and develop normally. This problem, called "failure to thrive," can be very serious or even deadly to the child.

Perinatal depression or postpartum depression can affect the entire family. The spouse or partner may feel ignored or unable to relieve the woman's depression symptoms. This may irreparably wound their partnership. Older kids in the family often have similar emotions, and have academic or peer difficulties as well.

Depression affects the entire family. For this reason, women experiencing perinatal depression or postpartum depression need to seek depression treatment as soon as possible. Several approaches can be used, including counseling and medication treatments. Medications, however, are sometimes dangerous for nursing infants, and sometimes yield erratic outcomes because of the great hormone fluctuations a mother experiences during these tumultuous times. Moreover, typical counseling therapies can be lengthy and costly.

Two therapies for dealing with depression that do not involve medicines and may rapidly show dramatically beneficial outcomes are hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP. Traditional Hypnotherapy is most effective for individuals who can be easily entranced or are capable of accepting suggestions without feeling a need to critique or comprehend them. Ericksonian Hypnotherapy is quite effective for persons who tend to overanalyze. These techniques allow clients to unwind and eliminate tension.

For people who tend to be more critical or analytical thinkers, NLP is usually more beneficial. With this technique, trained practitioners offer clients depression help by assisting them to restructure their mental processes. This approach can, quite literally, allow a client think through the depressive condition and overcome it.

Individuals can overcome depression by developing NLP tools like anchoring. They are coached to remember situations when they were happy and in control of their circumstances. Remembering the event revives these emotions. Clients are coached to put two fingers together while experiencing these feelings. The subconscious mind associates the touch of the two fingers with the emotions. Thus, the finger touch becomes an "anchor."

Then, when the individual begins to become overwhelmed, he or she activates the anchor by touching these same two fingers together again. This brings back emotions of self-control and creates empowerment.

Through another strategy called the Flash, clients discover how to think away negative feelings. They teach their subconscious minds to instantly substitute positive thoughts for negative ones. When negative thoughts arise, the mind instantly substitutes them for positive responses. After developing this approach, clients find it almost impossible to think negative thoughts!

Summary: Perinatal depression and postpartum depression may have disastrous results for a mother and her new infant. The rest of their family is also profoundly affected because of these conditions. Because of the possible significance of the outcomes of this condition, women with depression need to seek treatment as soon as symptoms begin. Two quite beneficial approaches that do not use medication or great outlays of time and financial resources are hypnosis and NLP.

About the Author

Alan B. Densky, CH specializes in stress and depression. During his 30-year career he's helped thousands of clients. He offers hypnotic depression therapy CDs. Visit his Neuro-VISION hypnosis for self development site for the hypnosis article repository, or watch his free videos on hypnosis.

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