It is normal to feel sad, frustrated and down from time to time, especially when something upsetting happens. It is also normal to have mild mood swings, where you may feel extra happy sometimes, grumpy or flat on other occasions, or fairly good overall. However, when a low mood persists, worsens or develops without any obvious reason, you may be experiencing something more serious, such as Depression.
Feeling Low, Flat, or Stuck?
Changes in mood are a part of life and can occur for a range of reasons. However, when depression takes hold, it can feel like something has changed for the worse, sometimes in hard to define ways. The usual lifts in your mood don’t seem to come, or don’t last. Days can start to blur together, and even small tasks may feel like a significant effort.
You might find yourself putting things off, or going through the motions without much sense of connection or enjoyment. Over time, this can leave you feeling stuck. Both unsure how things got this bad, or how to move forward.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone, and support can absolutely make a difference.
What Depression Can Feel Like
Depression doesn’t look the same for everyone. It can affect your emotions, thoughts, body, and behaviour in different ways. You might notice:
- Persistent low mood: Feeling sad, empty, flat, or irritable most of the time. Some people describe it as a “fog” or heaviness that doesn’t lift. This can be without an obvious cause (sometimes called ‘endogenous depression’). In other cases, your low mood might be a response to something challenging that’s happening in your life (sometimes called ‘reactive depression’).
- Physical changes: A range of physical changes occur with depression. These might include ongoing fatigue and loss of energy despite adequate rest, as well as body aches (such as headaches or back pain). Changes in sleep and appetite are also very common (both sleeping and eating too much, or not enough). Some people also notice that their thinking and physical movements are slowed.
- Loss of interest or pleasure: Activities you once enjoyed such as hobbies, socialising or sexual intimacy may feel like too much effort or no longer hold pleasure or meaning for you. This is called ‘anhedonia’.
- Withdrawal and self-isolation: Those struggling with depression often feel lonely and find it hard to reach out to others. This can lead to self-isolation, which can further worsen feelings of disconnection and negatively impact your relationships.
- Negative self-view: Feeling worthless, unlovable, being a burden, or not good enough are all common in depression, regardless of evidence to the contrary. You might blame yourself for things going wrong or struggle with confidence and decision-making.
- Hopelessness or pessimism: You may find it difficult to see the positives in life or imagine things getting better. You might expect the worst, question the point of things, or wonder whether you’ll ever feel happy or like yourself again.
- Coping through self-harm or thoughts of suicide: At times, distress can feel so intense that you look for ways to escape it, which can include thoughts of harming yourself. However, such attempts to avoid difficult feelings are unhelpful, and do not improve your low mood.
**If you are thinking of harming yourself or have self-harmed already, it is important you immediately reach out for support. We recommend seeing your GP or contacting one of the following free 24-hour helplines:
- Lifeline on 13 11 14
- Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467
- Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636
If you or someone you know are at serious risk of harm, please call 000 as a matter of emergency.
Age and gender can also impact how depression is experienced. Children and adolescents with depression often demonstrate irritability and anger more often than low mood. Whilst everyone is different, men also more commonly report symptoms of anger and physical pain than women. Men also tend to engage in unhelpful coping strategies such as alcohol or substance misuse more often.
How Depression Counselling Can Help
Counselling for depression focuses on helping you move out of feeling stuck and towards a life that feels more manageable and meaningful. Therapy can:
- Restore a sense of hope: Helping you see that change is possible, even if it doesn’t feel that way right now.
- Build practical skills: Supporting you to improve mood, manage difficult thoughts, and build resilience for future challenges.
- Reconnect you with what matters: Identifying what feels meaningful to you and gradually building more of these experiences into your life.
- Break unhelpful cycles: Understanding patterns of thinking and behaving that keep depression going, and learning new ways to respond.
- Understand and address what might be underlying the depression: For some people, especially those with recurrent depression, there are deeper roots underlying their experience. This might include attachment difficulties, trauma or personality traits like perfectionism.
A Psychologist’s Approach to Depression Treatment
At the start of therapy, your psychologist will take time to understand your unique experiences and what has contributed to how you’re feeling. This includes developing a shared understanding of your depression (called a formulation). This will include what may have triggered your depression, what keeps it going, and what steps to take to help you to move forwards.
From there, psychologists focus on:
- Using evidence-based treatments: There are many evidence-based treatments for depression, for example; Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing therapy (EMDR), and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Psychologists are highly trained to combine their knowledge of both the published evidence and your symptoms to deliver effective treatment.
- Starting small and building gradually: Identifying realistic, manageable steps that feel achievable based on your current energy and capacity. It’s never too late to get started, and you won’t be asked to make changes that feel out of reach. As these changes begin to help, therapy expands towards longer-term wellbeing.
- Working collaboratively: Your psychologist will work with you at a pace that feels supportive rather than overwhelming, adjusting the approach as your needs change.
- Responding to setbacks: Depression recovery is rarely a straight line. Your psychologist will help you understand difficult days without seeing them as failure, and develop ways to keep moving forward when motivation, energy, or hope dips.
What to Expect in Your First Session
Your first session is an opportunity to talk through what’s been going on and what’s brought you to therapy. Your psychologist will ask questions to understand your current difficulties, your history, your available supports, and what you’re hoping to get out of therapy.
You don’t need to have everything figured out or know exactly what to say – your psychologist will guide the conversation and help you if you feel stuck. The focus is on getting a clear picture of your experience and beginning to map out a way forward together. You may leave the first session with some initial direction, with a more detailed plan discussed in subsequent sessions once your psychologist has had time to consider your needs more fully.
You also won’t necessarily cover everything in the first session. By the end of the first session your psychologist will aim to understand the key information, and anything that you think is particularly relevant to your symptoms. If there are things you don’t feel up to sharing yet, that’s ok too. You can share things at your own pace.
Ongoing Therapy: Building Change Over Time
As therapy continues, sessions become a space to review what is helping, notice what still needs attention, and identify where therapy may need to focus next. Depression can affect many parts of life, so ongoing therapy may focus not just on mood management, but also on a range of areas such as motivation, sleep, relationships, self-criticism, stress, and your sense of meaning and purpose.
Over time, therapy can also help you understand patterns that may have made depression more likely to return, such as burnout, perfectionism, rumination, low self-worth, loneliness, or difficulty asking for support. This deeper understanding can help you respond to early warning signs sooner and therefore prevent a relapse.
The aim is not just to feel better in the short term, but to strengthen foundations for long-term wellbeing. As progress builds, many people notice improvements not only in mood, but in confidence, motivation, and overall quality of life.
Why Choose Our Depression Psychologists
At Peaceful Mind Psychology, our psychologists are experienced in supporting people with depression and understand how complex and varied each person’s experience can be. We are selective about the psychologists we choose to work with, placing importance not only on strong clinical skills, but also on warmth, thoughtfulness, and the ability to build a strong therapeutic relationship.
Our psychologists focus on:
- Creating a supportive, non-judgemental space where you feel understood
- Using evidence-based approaches tailored to your needs
- Working collaboratively, at a pace that feels manageable
- Supporting not just symptom relief, but meaningful, lasting change
We also take care to match you with the right psychologist. Our support team considers your preferences, including the type of psychologist you may connect best with, as well as any preferences around age or gender.
If you’re ready to seek support for depression, you can contact our team to be matched with one of our warm and professional psychologists.
If you’d like to learn more about depression, Beyond Blue is an excellent option. They have a huge range of resources, including fact sheets and tools to help you understand your mental health.
- How do I know if I need counselling for depression?
It may be time to seek support if low mood, numbness, irritability, or loss of motivation is affecting your daily life, relationships, work, study, or ability to enjoy things. You don’t need to wait until things feel unbearable. Counselling can be helpful even if you’re unsure whether what you’re experiencing is “serious enough”.
- Can therapy help if I’ve felt this way for a long time?
Yes. Even if depression has been part of your life for months or years, therapy can still help. Your psychologist can work with you to understand what has kept depression going, identify manageable starting points, and build change gradually at a pace that feels achievable.
- What if I don’t know why I feel depressed?
That’s okay. Some people can identify a clear trigger, while others feel low without an obvious reason. Therapy can help you make sense of your experience, including possible contributing factors such as stress, burnout, self-criticism, loneliness, grief, health issues, or long-standing patterns that may be affecting your mood.
- Will I have to talk about painful things straight away?
No. Your psychologist will work at a pace that feels manageable. The first sessions usually focus on understanding what’s been happening and what support you need. If there are things you don’t feel ready to talk about yet, you can share them when you feel more comfortable.