Nonetheless, sometimes a person must use this “bottom-up approach” in which case the body or mind is first healed, and only then can one work on the underlying spiritual condition. There are times when depression is so extreme that only through medication can one temporarily, through chemicals, treat the problem long enough to get to the deeper root and cause of the depression. When someone is removed enough from their own condition to view it as an outsider, then he or she can begin to slowly eliminate the medication and work instead to heal oneself through counseling.

Depression is something that is quite debilitating as it takes away one’s desire to motivate or do anything productive. Actually, in Hebrew, the word for laziness, atzlut, and the word for depressed, atzvut, are related, for when one is lazy it is often the predecessor for depression. When we feel accomplished, however, and we keep ourselves busy, feelings of depression vanish since often its cause is simply feeling that we have nothing to offer the world and nothing to do with our lives.