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Negative thinking patterns can be immensely deceptive and persuasive, and change is rarely easy. But with patience and persistence, I believe that nearly all individuals suffering from depression can improve and experience a sense of joy and self-esteem once again.

Every time you feel depressed about something, try to identify a corresponding negative thought you had just prior to and during the depression. Because these thoughts have actually created your bad mood, by learning to restructure them, you can change your mood.

Cognitive therapy is based on the idea that when you change the way you think, you can change the way you feel and behave. In other words, if we can learn to think about other people in a more positive and realistic way, it will be far easier to resolve conflicts and develop rewarding personal and professional relationships.

I still have a lot of those depressive thoughts, but now I have the foresight to tell myself, 'Don't think like that,' and things seem better.

The first principle of cognitive therapy is that all your moods are created by your 'cognitions,' or thoughts. A cognition refers to the way you look at things - your perceptions, mental attitudes, and beliefs. It includes the way you interpret things - what you say. about something or someone to yourself.

Through my own struggles with depression, I discovered that knowledge, therapy, medication and education can provide the strength to get through it in one piece.

A depressed person is often a person who will push others away. If you are pushed away and pushed away and pushed away, you have to have an enormous amount of inner resources to keep going back.

Anything that instills a sense of hope will at least temporarily help treat depression.

Positive psychology is not remotely intended to replace therapy or pharmacology. So when depressed, anxious or in panic or post-traumatic stress disorder, I am all for therapies that will work. Positive psychology is another arrow in the quiver of public policy and psychology through which we can raise wellbeing above zero.

Therapists need to give a depressed patient support and direction.