“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”
Our founder, Brooke Sprowl has 20 years specializing in depression, mood disorders, and the patterns underneath them. Her signature approach, Nervous System-Based Therapy, works at an unconscious level to shift the patterns running the show beneath the surface.
If you're nodding, that's exactly where we begin.
While sadness is a normal part of life, when it comes with hopelessness, worthlessness, or numbness, it requires professional treatment.
Depression affects how we think, feel, and behave, which can cause a whole host of emotional and physical problems — and its effects rarely stop with you. Feeling sad, disconnected, or apathetic takes a toll on your relationships too. Depression can also bring on intense emotions like emptiness, irrational guilt, preoccupation with death, thoughts of suicide, and unhealthy dependence on others.
These are signs that your nervous system needs support to shift the underlying emotional and cognitive patterns causing your depression. Below are a few of the most common signs of depression:
We use research-based therapy approaches that are scientifically proven to treat every kind of depression including:
A situation that used to bring you joy is happening — and you notice you no longer feel as relaxed or excited as you used to.
A sense of apathy that never seems to go away, no matter how the day goes.
Increased anxiety and agitation that make you feel unsafe or uncomfortable in situations that used to feel normal — even enjoyable.
You may also start to entertain the idea of suicide. Whether you are actually considering going through with it or just thinking about it (known as suicidal ideation), please reach out to a professional or call 911 immediately. Suicide is a permanent way to avoid a temporary problem — one we can help you work through.
Our team of experienced therapists specialize in a wide range of depression and mood disorders, which can stem from trauma, learned behavior, negative thought patterns, and biochemistry — or some combination of all of the above. Below are the ones we treat most, and their telltale signs and symptoms:
If you are having thoughts of harming yourself in any way, please reach out for help right now — call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) or call 911. Suicide is a permanent answer to a temporary problem that we can help you work through.
Depression doesn't only manifest in the mind — it shows up in the body as well, and research keeps finding more evidence that gut health, immune health, and mental health are tied together in a self-reinforcing feedback loop (see our functional nutrition & holistic therapy research). In other words, our physical and emotional lives interact bidirectionally and reinforce one another.
When we feel our best, we are more likely to eat well, exercise consistently, be productive, and have the kind of positive interactions that build new friendships and relationships. When we're depressed, the opposite happens: work, social engagements, and exercise fly out the window. The less we take care of ourselves, the worse we feel — and the worse we feel, the less we take care of ourselves. That vicious cycle is hard to break out of alone, which is why our proprietary Nervous System-Based Therapy works on every channel below, not just the thoughts:
What makes the cycle even harder is that depression consequently erodes our self-esteem and self-worth. So whether you are simply going through a rough time or you're fully in the throes of depression, therapy can help you identify the underlying patterns and implement strategies to restore a sense of joy, peace, and competence to your life.
Our methods are scientifically backed and research-proven to be effective for treating depression, anxiety, and a whole host of other mental health issues.
Every therapist on our team is rigorously vetted and trained by our founder, Brooke Sprowl, LCSW, with 20 years of clinical experience. So when you come to us for depression, we get to know your unique needs, personality and preferences then match you with the right specialist for you.
Personally vetted and trained by our founder, our team has special training in Nervous System-Based Therapy, offering real-time feedback on the unconscious patterns and defense mechanisms that keep depression in place.
You did more in 45 minutes than my last therapist did in a year!
From the beginning of our session, Brooke knew exactly what tools and questions would work for my particular psychology. No other therapist has been able to do that.
I felt very seen, understood, and supported. Brooke went right to the source of the issue while staying so gentle and kind.
Brooke has the true gift of insight and compassion, getting straight to the heart of your blind spots in a way that’s truly changed my life.
Therapy helped me untangle so much confusion and bring peace to where I once felt fear. I feel free and alive for the first time in a long time.
My vivid imagination wants to create terrifying monsters under the bed. In a lot of cases those monsters are nothing more than a heap of laundry that just needs to be aired out.
The original framework our founder developed over twenty years in practice, and the backbone of how we treat depression: working with the system that has gone quiet, not just the thoughts it produces.
Real-time nervous system regulation and autonomic tracking, as it’s happening, lets us read what your system is doing in the room — the flatness, the shutdown, the bracing underneath it — and work with it as it happens.
Depression is often what remains when defenses that once kept us safe keep running long past their usefulness, flattening feeling along with pain. We identify and compassionately interrupt these defense mechanisms to break the cycle.
Depression travels different pathways in different people — through thinking, mood, the body, sleep, and appetite. We work somatically, experientially, cognitively, and with parts, understanding that each pathway requires different interventions.
Our evidence-based, scientifically proven interventions are demonstrated to be effective for overcoming depression and other related mood disorders. Every approach below has been tested in clinical research, and your therapist draws on the ones that fit how your depression presents.
Our therapist matching specialist knows every therapist on our roster personally and who is the best fit for your unique needs and personality.
Our warm and experienced LA depression specialists offer in-person therapy at 7 office locations across the city, plus online therapy anywhere in California, or a mix of both.
*Available within a certain radius — get matched to find out more.
I spent more than 10 years seeking help for my own mental health with over a dozen different therapists. I know this territory so deeply because I've lived it personally. I know what it feels like to wake up with no reason to get out of bed, to move through a whole day feeling almost nothing, and to be told to look on the bright side by people who love you.
You are not weak, and you are not too much. Depression tends to settle on brilliant, capable, deeply feeling people. In twenty years of practice, my clients are some of the most extraordinary people I've ever met.
Depression lifts as you learn to work with the nervous system rather than against it, discerning the cues your body is sending you to slow down, pay attention, and tend to your own needs. In this way, you restore your capacity to trust yourself, repattern your nervous system, and reconnect with a sense of peace and aliveness
Learn scientifically proven CBT techniques to overcome anxiety, depression, and irrational thoughts so you can see yourself in more realistic and empowering ways.
You deserve a life depression doesn’t get to run. One conversation is all it takes to know whether we’re the right people to help you take it back.
Find my depression therapist →Still deciding? The free 30-minute consult matching call exists for exactly this — no charge, no commitment.
Get to know us at your own pace, or skip the research and let us match you.
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