Why Am I So Depressed? Therapy for Depression in Berkhamsted | Sean Heneghan
"I don't understand why I feel this way. My life is objectively good, I haven't been abused, I've had a good childhood, I don't come from a war-torn country. I should be grateful, but instead I feel empty and exhausted. What's wrong with me?"
Many first therapy sessions start with something like this and it's often what I hear when someone first comes to explore their depression.
Often without realising, they're already invalidating their own experience before we've even begun to explore it.
What I actually hear beneath what the person is saying is something like:
"I should be happy. There must be something fundamentally wrong with me that I feel so low despite having a decent life."
After twenty years of working as a therapist in Berkhamsted, I've learned that one of the most healing things I can offer is a simple but disarming recognition: Your depression makes sense, though not many people accept this initially.
Depression is often not an overreaction, but an appropriate response to experiences that have genuinely been difficult. It might not make sense now, but the likelihood is it will if we start to explore it and you hear a perspective on it that is completely outside of your own.
Depression as a Sane Response
We live in a culture that encourages us to minimise our difficulties and "move on" from painful experiences.
We're taught that resilience means bouncing back quickly and that dwelling on problems is self-indulgent.
But this pressure to be perpetually fine often prevents us from acknowledging the real impact of what we've lived through:
- The childhood where you felt unseen or diminished
- The relationships where you gave more than you received.
- The accumulation of small disappointments and betrayals that individually seem manageable but collectively take a toll.
Your depression might be your psyche's way of saying:
"This has been hard. This has had an impact. I need time and space to process what I've been through."
Rather than seeing depression as a defect, we can understand it as a reflection of the way in which your sensitivity as a human being has been impacted by what you've lived through
The Hidden Language of Self-Attack
When people tell me about their life, I often hear something telling in how they describe themselves:
"I should have known better."
"I was so weak."
"That was stupid of me."
This isn't casual self-reflection, it's the language of someone who's condemned themselves as fundamentally inadequate.
Some respond by relentlessly pursuing achievement, as if they can earn their way out of feeling flawed. Others become terrified of judgment, scanning constantly for signs of disapproval.
What strikes me most is how intolerant we can be of our own human frailties. People often imagine that others are consistently rational, strong, and successful and measure themselves harshly against this imagined standard.
The Loss of Personal Potency
Depression often brings a deep sense of powerlessness — the feeling that you can't create meaningful change in your life.
It's not about lacking skills. It's about losing faith in your capacity to influence your own experience.
This loss can develop gradually:
- Trying to change family dynamics but nothing shifts.
- Investing deeply in relationships that end painfully.
- Repeated disappointments that leave you doubting your own agency.
It can feel like being trapped behind glass, able to see possibilities, but unable to believe you can create them for yourself.
Making the Unconscious Conscious
Therapy can help bring hidden beliefs into awareness.
That voice saying "I'm not good enough" might be your father's anxiety projected onto you.
The conviction that "nothing works out for me" might be self-protection against the pain of hoping.
When these patterns become conscious, you can question them and discover that they're interpretations, not absolute truths. Therapy is often about discovering where you've been wrong about yourself, which is a very useful thing if deep down you're convinced you're no good.
Developing a Fundamental Sense of Okayness
Beneath many depressions is the belief that you're not fundamentally okay, that you're somehow inadequate or wrong.
The psychoanalyst Adam Phillips once wrote:
"The aim of therapy is not to cure people but to show them that there is nothing wrong with them."
This doesn't deny real problems, it means your essential worth isn't conditional on being problem-free.
What Recovery Looks Like
As you move from self-attack to okayness, you may notice shifts:
Thinking, "Actually, that wasn't my mistake" instead of "It's all my fault."
Moments of self-compassion replacing automatic criticism.
Seeing yourself as "just a person like anyone else", not singularly broken or unusually dysfunctional.
You begin to recognise the similarity of all human struggle.
Integrating Mind and Body
In my work, we often combine therapy with acupuncture, recognising that depression affects the whole person: mood, thoughts, energy, sleep, and nervous system regulation.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, emotional and physical health are understood as inseparable. Acupuncture may help support wellbeing while therapy addresses the unconscious patterns fuelling depression. Individual responses to treatment vary.
Moving Forward with Compassion
If you're struggling with depression, consider this:
Your feelings might make perfect sense given your life experience.
Your depression may not be evidence of inadequacy but of your humanity.
FAQs: Therapy for Depression in Berkhamsted
How long does therapy for depression typically take?
There's no standard timeline because depression isn't a standard experience. Some people find significant shifts within a few months, while others need longer to explore patterns that have been decades in the making. What I can say is that meaningful change often happens in waves rather than linear progress. We work at your pace, not according to some external expectation of how quickly you "should" feel better.
Is depression something I'll always struggle with?
It's hard to make meaningful predictions about forever but what is key is how you relate to yourself with what you're feeling, whenever you're feeling it. If you develop a gentleness with yourself that is humane, periods of depression are likely to be shorter and lighter than with a more detrimental attitude toward yourself
How do I know if therapy is working?
Sometimes the first sign isn't feeling dramatically better - it's noticing you're being less harsh with yourself. You might catch that critical inner voice and think, "Actually, that's not fair." Or you might find yourself sleeping slightly better, or feeling less exhausted by simple decisions. Recovery from depression often begins with small shifts in self-perception before larger life changes follow.
What if I've tried therapy before and it didn't help?
Not all therapeutic approaches suit everyone, and sometimes the timing wasn't right. What I offer combines different perspectives - gestalt awareness, psychoanalytic insight, and the body-mind integration of acupuncture. If previous therapy felt too focused on techniques or positive thinking, you might find this approach more authentic to your actual experience.
Do you really combine therapy with acupuncture?
Yes, and it's not as unusual as it might sound. Your depression isn't just happening in your mind - it's affecting your sleep, your energy, your nervous system. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, emotional and physical health are understood as inseparable. Some sessions might be pure talking therapy, others might include acupuncture, depending on what seems most helpful for where you are. Individual responses to treatment vary. They also don't have to be combined. We can work with therapy alone
What if I'm not sure I'm "depressed enough" for therapy?
This question itself often tells me something important. If you're questioning whether you deserve help, that's usually a sign that the self-critical voice is already quite strong. You don't need to meet some threshold of suffering to warrant understanding and support. Sometimes the people who question whether they're struggling "enough" are the ones who've been taught to minimize their own experience most thoroughly.
About Sean Heneghan Sean Heneghan is a qualified gestalt counsellor, traditional acupuncturist, and cognitive hypnotherapist based in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. With over 20 years of therapeutic experience, Sean integrates existential, psychoanalytic, and body-mind approaches to help clients understand depression as a meaningful response rather than a personal failing. His practice combines talking therapy with traditional acupuncture, offering a holistic approach to mental health and wellbeing.
Location & Contact
Practice: Berkhamsted Chiropractic Clinic, 69 High Street, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire
Phone: 07717 515 013
email: sean@seanheneghan.com
Services Offered
Gestalt counselling for depression and anxiety
Traditional acupuncture
Cognitive hypnotherapy
Integrated mind-body therapy approaches
Individual therapy sessions in Berkhamsted
Areas Served Berkhamsted, Hemel Hempstead, Tring, Chesham, Amersham, St Albans, and surrounding areas in Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire.
Article updated August 2025