What other treatments could help my depression & ptsd?

Some members of a mental health support forum which I help to administer have found Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) helpful for complex PTSD.

For a general description of DBT see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy

Complex PTSD, referred to by some as ‘intractable’ is PTSD at an intense and invasive level. Did you have the depression before you had PTSD symptoms? If not, it might be possible that the depression has been triggered by the PTSD.

No idea what area you are in but if you feel comfortable, use the “Make an Enquiry” on my profile page and I will put you in touch with someone you can get to. Complex PTSD, addressed deeply enough may possibly handle the depression. In this case, without asking questions not suitable for this forum it is of course hard to advise.
My best wishes,
Ralph Graham

To ask a question in private or to have me recommend someone in your area
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I’m truly sorry to hear about your struggle and suffering. How frustrating to have put so much effort into feeling better and to end up feeling worse!
I’d like to take a risk and pose a somewhat provocative question. What would it be like for you if, instead of seeking to feel better, you were to seek to do better? In my experience feelings aren’t a reliable barometer for a life well lived. Feelings come and go (tho your low mood may be spending more time coming rather than going). Living a life serving your values - the stuff that touches your heart – is an alternative. With imagination and support, maybe you could continue to serve your values regardless of how you feel.
I don’t want to trivialise the magnitude of your suffering. Your diagnosis of PTSD tells me you’ve experienced trauma. The road to recovery after trauma is a hard one. I wonder if your treating health professionals might explore some compassion work with you? The work of Paul Gilbert and Kristin Neff is particularly helpful. They both have websites.
I work within a framework of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) which incorporates many of the techniques you have tried (as well as self-compassion & values work), but within a totally different theoretical paradigm. The goal of ACT is to live better, not to feel better (though feeling better often follows living better). If you’re interested in this approach, talk to your psychologists/psychiatrist. More information about ACT can be found at www.contextualscience.org
Dr Simon Easterbrook-Smith mentions DBT. DBT & ACT are closely aligned, both theoretically and practically.
I wish you well on your journey.

I wonder if you have considered Clinical Hypnotherapy? Clinical Hypnotherapy allows you to explore the PTSD  you have experienced, the associated feelings of the event and the symptoms of depression in a safe and relaxed manner utilizing your subconscious.  Then reduce or even remove the unwanted feelings surrounding the traumatic event, and  replace them with more positive and helpful emotions which will assist in lessening the depression you currently suffer.  Clinical Hypnotherapy can re-educate the mind and offers tools to increase your self confidence and automony. I wish you a calm and happy future.  Pam

Getting worse may be due to the psychotherapy or just part of the illness. You are describing feelings of hopelessness which are part of depression and as you are having them at the same time as therapy it makes sense to think the two are linked.

It is quite common when treating trauma for the client to feel worse before feeling better. Treatment involves going through events from the past that are disturbing and this triggers feelings that are unpleasant. I often use the analogy of a thorn stuck under the skin that keeps getting infected. The only way to get better is to dig out the thorn which involves some short term pain.

I would suggest you ask your therapist to spend a session talking about hopelessness and strategies for coping with those feelings.

As a health practitioner we are facilitators to your problem.  You are actually the one that went through whatever caused your problem and you will be the one that will release both your depression and PTSD symptoms whenyou find the right person that guides you to do that. 

What is the best way for you?  What makes it better, what makes it worse?  You are seeing a psychiatrist - does that mean you are on medication?  Are there any side effects that you have noticed?  If so discuss that with your psychiatrist, who would be able to adivse you about this or possibly change any medication.

You are seeing two psychologists every fortnight and have tried many things - for how long?  Do you stay at one thing long enough to give it a good try or are you at the stage where if it doesn't make changes straight away - forget it!?  This can be a feeling for many people who are sick and tired of doing one thing after another that doesn't work.  Just know that it does work for some people.

On the other hand, maybe you need to try a different therapy like Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). There is now research evidence of the efficacy of this treatment. Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing, or EMDR  You might like to look at this site here:  The Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology (ACEP), www.energypsych.org/  Members of this Association are mainly doctors, psychologists, people in welfare and you have to meet the training criteria to belong.

Traumatic Incident reduction, or TIR is a metapsychology release of trauma.  In NeuroLinquistic Programming there is a 'watching the moviie' whilst removed from the actual experience.  TIR is also a watching the movie of what happened and through the protocol of guding the client the energy of the event(s) diminishes to zero.

Accelerated Resolution Therapy, or ART.  ART works in two phases to alleviate psychological trauma symptoms and related disorders such as depression and anxiety.  A combination of evidence-based psychotherapies and use of eye movements -- was shorter and more likely to be completed, than conventional therapies formally endorsed by the U.S. Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration in America.

If your problems go back to childhood, you might want to look at -  ASCA's psycho-educational workshop for adult survivors of childhood trauma and abuse see this link here: http://www.asca.org.au/Education-and-Training/Calendar-of-Events/Public-Workshop-for-Survivors.aspx (Sydney workshop starts in March 2015).

All of the above are stand-alone therapies which I often use in the hypnotherapy trance state with good results.  And there are many more traditional hypnosis techniques that are able to be used as well.

The main thing is - don't give up.  Through everything you have already been through it may seem so hard right now, but finding the right therapy that works for you can turn that around.