We all know the saying, “it ain’t over until it’s over.” People who are depressed often think, “It’s over.” Yet over and over, my patients see that, with treatment, their lives are not over at all.

Instead, they discover that meaning and purpose are within their grasp. Love, belief, and confidence in themselves grow. They have a newfound ability to make healthy decisions, exert agency over their lives, focus, exude positivity, discover beauty, and enjoy relationships with loved ones.

Psychiatrist Victor Frankl wrote that life is primarily “a quest for meaning.” When people are depressed, they feel their lives are meaningless. As a result, they stop striving to achieve their goals. In a potentially endless vicious cycle, their depression leads to an inability to act in constructive ways. Their lives become even more bleak and sorrowful.

When meeting with a severely depressed patient, the first challenge for the therapist is to pull them out of the abyss. It’s about the resurrection of hope. It takes a lot of effort to convince someone who is in despair that they will gain the energy to pursue their dreams when their depression is treated, but instilling that hope is an essential component to achieving a successful outcome.

The initial step when meeting a new patient is to excavate the archeology of their problem. When did this begin? Was there a precipitating cause, like a breakup, a........

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