A Research Paper By Richard Lefort, Life Path Coach, CANADA
Depression and Anxiety
I believe our awareness of mental health as a common issue in our society is becoming increasingly apparent. The problem is compared to say a physical illness like a scrape on the leg or a broken bone, the understanding of how mental illnesses manifest as well as how to remedy them is very much a grey area for many. During my journey to acquire my coaching credentials, I’ve noticed this area as a touchy subject, I am not a psychiatrist or a therapist therefore I do not want to offer help that I am not qualified to give. This paper aims to focus on two areas; anxiety and depression. I would like to educate coaches on what these are, how they manifest, and what we have the power to do about it. Then we will apply this knowledge in our coaching practice by better understanding our clients and their potential obstacles, as well as concrete tools to aid with both. I am by no means a medical practitioner; therefore, this paper is based on my interpretation of others’ research. The following learnings are intended for a more blended coaching style and less pure coaching.
Depression and Anxiety Definition
Depression Defined
Depression is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as;” A mood disorder that is marked by varying degrees of sadness, despair, and loneliness and that is typically accompanied by inactivity, guilt, loss of concentration, social withdrawal, sleep disturbances, and sometimes suicidal tendencies.” Now that we have a baseline, for today I would like to look at depression through two lenses; clinical depression, and congruent depression. Let us dissect and differentiate the two.
Clinical depression is episodic, meaning people will experience extreme depressive states for anywhere from two weeks to 1 year at a time. They will almost be on a pendulum of feeling like everything is all right or even great and then quite the opposite, not necessarily with much change in their life or circumstances. Clinical depression can often get better simply with time with or without treatment, though as one might assume there are benefits to getting treatment.
Congruent depression, on the other hand, is constant. This means people can feel symptoms of depression for years at a time with no breaks or intervals. Congruent depression is often rooted in life circumstances, e.g., “I live an unfulfilling life doing things and being around people I don’t enjoy.” If we do not look after our personal health, it is easy to slip into some level of congruent depression.
Depression Manifestations
Let’s explore some manifestations of depression, this will allow us as coaches to choose the appropriate response in different situations. Both of these types of depression share some common traits making it sometimes hard to differentiate. This illness is intricate and complex, when in doubt, be curious about their health and refer your clients to a healthcare practitioner if needed. Things such as; loss of interest, sadness, low energy/fatigue, low self-worth, sleeping too much or having trouble sleeping, suicidal thoughts, and guilt can be signs of both clinical and congruent depression. When the mind is in a depressive state we often dwell on the past. This is an important trait to note, as later on we will discuss anxiety, a future-focused state of mind.
The main thing that allows us to notice clinical depression is its episodic nature and intensity. In a perfect example, the client’s life circumstances stay relatively the same day in and day out, and yet the depression comes around like clockwork. The ebbs and flows of their mood are likely to seem much more drastic than in congruent depression.
Incongruent depression, our key identifier is the fact that it is more of a constant in the client’s life based on outside circumstances. When they are succeeding, fulfilled, and doing well, they feel great and show little to no symptoms of depression. When they face many challenges, don’t practice self-care, are perhaps in a period of transition, or grieving the loss of a relationship or loved one, these are a few examples of times they will show symptoms of depression.
Depression, a Coach’s Approach
Now that we have a bit of a better understanding of depression, particularly clinical vs. congruent depression, how do we apply this in our coaching practice? I can’t stress enough how, without the proper training, we need to be careful about trying to diagnose our clients, as well as forcing certain practices on them. Instead, approach your clients from a place of curiosity and understanding, and let them lead the conversation while maintaining the focus on their session goal. As a coach, our job is not to diagnose clients but to keep the conversation future-focused and explore possible courses of action. In both clinical depression and congruent depression, things like; diet, daily mindfulness practices, yoga, meditation, exercise, and time in nature can be useful tools in remedying or managing symptoms of depression. Be very careful in sharing advice that you lack the knowledge to share. In areas where you lack the knowledge, encourage your clients to explore them for themselves while advising caution in their sources.
When separating the two, clinical depression has fewer areas of focus for coaching, and more often than not, the client should seek out a healthcare practitioner to receive the appropriate treatment. Treatments can be things such as psychotherapy, medications, or alternative treatments.
Congruent depression, on the other hand, has many more opportunities for coaches to have a more hands-on impact. Remember that congruent depression is indeed congruent to the circumstance that your client is in. This means that simply seeking out coaching, becoming more aware of the things in their life that do and do not work, and taking steps towards creating a more fulfilling life for themselves will often lead to the dissipation of congruent depression. We can help our clients make meaningful changes in their lives to alter that circumstance that was creating a depressive state, into one that creates a state of happiness and well-being. I hope that it’s starting to become clear that coaching, full of tools for changing perspectives and tools for growth, is harmonious with treating congruent depression. You might have already helped many of your clients deal with this type of depression without even knowing it!
Anxiety Defined
Anxiety is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as;” Apprehensive uneasiness or nervousness usually over an impending or anticipated ill: a state of being anxious.” Notice in this definition the words impending and anticipated. Anxiety is therefore, by definition, the future-focused mind. An interesting thing about anxiety that people don’t think about is; “Why do we have anxiety?” From a physiological perspective, anxiety has evolved as a mechanism to help us foresee problems, anticipate, and protect ourselves from those problems. This is intriguing because we started by saying anxiety is the future-focused mind, but now we begin to notice that it can often be rooted in the past, through trauma or other uncomfortable situations. These root problems are what lead us to create common manifestations of anxiety that we use time and time again as a tool to tackle certain problems
Anxiety Manifestations
Anxiety can have physiological manifestations, such as; sweaty palms, tightness in the chest or muscles, increased heart rate, feeling weak or tired, and more. Though these are important to understand in order to be self-aware of one’s anxiety, I would like to focus on the cognitive manifestations of anxiety.
A common reaction to anxiety is thought loops, where one thought leads to another, and another until we loop back to the first and start over. Our mind is very resourceful, more than ever before our mind hates to be bored or to have nothing to do. The mind loves to think so that is what we do. It is, for this reason, people who suffer from anxiety will often have trouble sleeping. They lie down and the mind no longer has anything to do so it looks at any problem, big or small, and approaches it from every angle.
General reactions to anxiety are as follows; The mind distracts itself, tries to avoid the problem or thought, tries to reassure itself, or fights the problem.
Distractions can be anything from reading, watching TV, gaming, meditation, and so on. Distractions are a great solution to anxiety because it takes the future-focused mind and brings it to the present moment. That being said, we must be careful because they are often temporary solutions, when you turn off the TV, the problem is still there.
Avoidance can manifest as removing one’s self from the anxious problem or situation. For example; “I can avoid being made fun of if I simply don’t show up to the office party.” As you can see, avoidance can be limiting and often leads to feeling less freedom in your life.
Reassurance manifests as what seems to be making excuses, or justifying one’s actions in any means possible. For example; “If these other people from the office are not going to the party, it’s okay if I don’t either.” Reassurance, though effective, is again only a temporary solution.
The mind fights anxiety by denying and refusing to believe the anxious feelings, thinking of; “fake it till you make it.” For example, thoughts like; “I shouldn’t feel this way.” or, “It’s not that big of a deal.”
Again, our mind is quite resourceful at dealing with anxiety. As you may have noticed many, if not all, of these reactions to anxiety offer only temporary solutions. Let’s explore some different approaches to anxiety with longer-lasting if not permanent, effects.
Anxiety a Coaches Approach
Before exploring how anxiety relates to coaching, and how we can help our clients, I’d like to make an important remark. Anxiety, as I alluded to earlier, is often rooted in a certain event or trauma that conditions us to resort to anxiety as a tool. Though this anxiety might have served us in the past, it is important to be aware if it still serves us today. For example, someone with an abusive parent might know to keep quiet in their room when they hear angry voices downstairs, and this leads to conditioning themselves to not speak up in fear of something bad happening to them. The important thing to note here is not only this awareness but also the fact that a coach is not trained to dive into the past, into the root of their client’s anxiety. Instead, approach your clients with curiosity, listen actively, and refer them to a therapist or psychological help when needed.
Now, here is how you can have a meaningful impact as a coach. Let’s look at four ways to approach anxiety.
Since anxiety is the future-focused mind, we can train our minds to be more comfortable in the present. There are many ways to do this, but one I encourage you to explore is meditation. Aside from the many other benefits of meditation, in relation to anxiety, it trains our mind to be in the present moment and to focus on the task at hand even when experiencing anxiety. Certain practices can also be used at the moment as an instant remediation to things like panic attacks. Keep in mind there are many different types of meditation aside from the stereotypical; “Calm your mind and focus on your breath.” I encourage you all to research specific meditations for anxiety or people with ADHD for example.
Another useful approach to anxiety is increasing our self-awareness of anxiety in general and how it manifests for us individually. When talking about thought loops earlier, if one can be aware of what their mind is doing and know that it will stop eventually, this can sometimes dissolve the anxiety. Awareness of how anxiety manifests for you can also allow you to notice when it is happening. You can then use tools such as breathing exercises or prescribed medication to control it, though later might not be the greatest long-term solution.
Anxiety has some roots in the ego, therefore we can approach anxiety by ego dissolution. If it’s not important to you what others think of you, this can wash away many anxieties. Helping clients explore this, what it means to them, and how their ego is serving them can perhaps evoke a perspective shift.
Coaching in general is extremely future-focused and pairs naturally well with tackling anxiety. Helping clients unpack their problems and work towards an action plan will naturally dissolve their anxieties as tasks are completed and remove things from the list of things their minds must think about.
Finally, surrender is an alternate approach to anxiety. If one can let go of control of the outcomes, one can instead focus on controlling their actions. This is much easier said than done, but an interesting concept to explore.
Depression and Anxiety: Understand and Educate
In conclusion, depression and anxiety are extremely common in our clients’ daily lives and I believe it is important to understand and educate ourselves on what they are, how they manifest, and how as a coach or for ourselves we can approach them. I can’t stress enough how important it is to know your own, as well as your client’s boundaries. The goal here is to have a better understanding and to coach within our qualifications, please refer people to healthcare practitioners when appropriate. Remain curious, listen actively, and guide your clients in what it is they choose to explore.
References
[1] https://www.mayoclinic.org clinical depression, what does that mean?
[2] https://healingrootstherapy.ca Depression: symptoms and coping strategies
[3] www.merriam-webster.com Definitions from Merriam-Webster: Depression, anxiety
[4] https://coaching.healthygamer.gg/guide/index Dr. K’s Guide to Mental Health