Regain your sense of hope, motivation, and purpose. Increase energy and vitality. Enjoy life again.

“Why are you cast down, O my soul?”

The Bible does not look away from depression. The Psalmist interrogates his own darkness — “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?” (Psalm 42:5) — and an entire psalm, Psalm 88, ends without resolution: “darkness is my closest friend.” Elijah, fresh from his greatest ministry victory, asked God to let him die (1 Kings 19:4). Charles Spurgeon, the great nineteenth-century preacher, spoke openly from his own pulpit about his recurring, crushing seasons of depression. If you are a Christian and depressed, you are not a contradiction. You are in the company of the saints — and of a Savior who was Himself “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).

So let’s say it plainly: depression is not laziness, weakness, or a failure of faith. It’s one of the world’s leading causes of disability, and the Lancet–World Psychiatric Association Commission on depression calls the global failure to treat it a crisis of “inaction” — because effective treatments exist and most people never receive them (Herrman et al., 2022).

If you’re having thoughts of harming yourself, don’t wait for an appointment: call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), available 24/7.

Depression responds to treatment — and that, too, is grace

When God’s common grace gives His creatures effective medicine for a real affliction, using it is faith, not faithlessness. Psychotherapy for depression has been tested in hundreds of randomized trials. Meta-analyses find that structured therapies — cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), behavioral activation, interpersonal and problem-solving approaches — reliably reduce depression, with broadly comparable effects across the major evidence-based models (Cuijpers et al., 2008; Cuijpers et al., 2013). Behavioral activation deserves special mention: a meta-analysis of 26 randomized trials found it superior to controls and at least comparable to medication (Ekers et al., 2014) — and its core insight, that action can lead feeling rather than wait for it, would not surprise anyone who has read how God treated Elijah’s despair: sleep first, food twice, a walk, and then the conversation (1 Kings 19:5–15).

Therapy, medication, or both?

Because you are an embodied soul — body and soul distinct but inseparable — it should not surprise us that both talking and biology can help. This is the question we hear most, and the research gives a genuinely useful answer. A large network meta-analysis found psychotherapy and antidepressant medication similarly effective for depression on their own — and their combination more effective than either alone, especially for chronic and moderate-to-severe depression (Cuijpers et al., 2020; Cuijpers et al., 2014). Direct head-to-head comparisons likewise find psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy similarly effective (Cuijpers et al., 2013) — and therapy is skills-based: you leave with tools you keep. A well-known analysis of FDA trial data found that antidepressant benefit over placebo grows with severity — smallest in milder depression and clearly meaningful in severe depression (Kirsch et al., 2008).

That’s why our approach is medication-last-but-not-never: we start with counseling and the whole-person factors below; when medication is the right call — and sometimes it clearly is — our psychiatric nurse practitioner coordinates it with your therapist, so you have one team and one plan.

Stewarding the whole person: sleep, movement, life rhythms

Depression is treated best the way people are made — as whole persons. A major review of “lifestyle psychiatry” concluded that exercise, sleep, diet, and smoking cessation each play a real role in preventing and treating depression (Firth et al., 2020). We build them into your plan:

• Movement. Exercise is an effective treatment for depression — a meta-analysis correcting for publication bias found a large effect (Schuch et al., 2016), and an umbrella review across populations confirms physical activity improves depressive symptoms (Singh et al., 2023). It also protects: higher physical activity predicts lower odds of developing depression (Schuch et al., 2018).
• Sleep. Sleep has a documented role in preventing and treating depression (Firth et al., 2020), and cognitive-behavioral treatment of insomnia reliably improves sleep without medication (van Straten et al., 2018). “He gives to his beloved sleep” (Psalm 127:2) — and sometimes He gives it through good sleep therapy.
• Connection and rhythms. Depression isolates; healing reconnects. “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18) is an anthropology, not just a wedding text — so we work on relationships, meaningful activity, and daily structure, the behavioral-activation core that strong trials support (Cuijpers et al., 2008; Ekers et al., 2014).

A free tool to start with today

You don’t have to wait for your first appointment to act on these findings. Our free tool Things to Try to Improve Mood turns the lifestyle research above into a practical menu of ten small habits — sleep hygiene, diet, movement, prayer and meditation, face-to-face connection, journaling, reading, visualization, affirmations, and tracking your results. It’s built to be a menu, not a to-do list: pick one thing, focus on it for three to four weeks, then add another — the same start-small-and-build logic behind behavioral activation (Ekers et al., 2014), and the same shape as Luke 16:10 — “one who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much.” Many of our clients use it alongside counseling to turn sessions into weekday momentum.

Counseling where your faith is treatment, not decoration

We are a Christian practice, and depression is one of the places that matters most — because depression lies about God. It says your prayers bounce off the ceiling, that your guilt is the truest thing about you, that you should be able to “count it all joy” by willpower. Good counseling answers those lies with both Scripture and skill.

The research backs the integration. Meta-analyses find religiously and spiritually integrated psychotherapies perform at least as well as standard approaches, with added benefits for spiritual well-being (Smith et al., 2007; Captari et al., 2023). Religiously integrated CBT — which uses your own faith explicitly in treatment — matched conventional CBT for major depression in a randomized trial, with some advantage for clients whose faith runs deep (Pearce et al., 2015). Randomized trials of religious and spiritual interventions report reduced anxiety and stress (Gonçalves et al., 2015); a randomized trial of person-to-person prayer found depression and anxiety reductions that held at one year (Boelens et al., 2009). And the broader literature connects healthy religious engagement with better mental health, including substantially lower depression and suicide in long-run prospective cohorts (Koenig, 2012; Lucchetti et al., 2021; Li et al., 2016; VanderWeele et al., 2017).

In the room, that looks like lament practiced honestly (the Psalms give permission; therapy gives tools — we hold both), guilt distinguished from false guilt at the foot of the cross, and hope rebuilt on something sturdier than mood. And because grace never coerces, the depth of integration always follows your lead.

Depression counseling in Glendale, AZ — and online

If getting to an office feels impossible right now — that’s depression talking, and it’s okay. Guided internet-delivered CBT produces outcomes equivalent to face-to-face therapy (Carlbring et al., 2018), and an individual-patient-data meta-analysis in JAMA Psychiatry confirms internet-based CBT’s efficacy across depression severities (Karyotaki et al., 2021).

We provide depression counseling in person in Glendale, Arizona (17230 N 59th Ave, inside Faith Bible Church — serving Glendale, Peoria, and the north Phoenix Valley) and by telehealth across Arizona and Washington. We accept most major insurance plans and offer a sliding scale with price ranges that fit real budgets. Wondering if what you’re feeling is depression? Take our free, anonymous depression symptoms test — it screens your mood in the context of the challenges that often travel with it.

Start today

Depression tells you nothing will help. The research — and the God who binds up the brokenhearted (Psalm 147:3) — says otherwise. One small step today: reach out.

Save and share

Pin or share these — someone you love may need them today.

References

• Boelens, P. A., Reeves, R. R., Replogle, W. H., & Koenig, H. G. (2009). A randomized trial of the effect of prayer on depression and anxiety. International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, 39(4), 377–392. https://doi.org/10.2190/PM.39.4.c
• Captari, L. E., Sandage, S. J., Vandiver, R. A., Jankowski, P. J., & Hook, J. N. (2023). The evaluation of religious and spirituality-based therapy compared to standard treatment in mental health care: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychotherapy Research, 33(8), 1041–1057. https://doi.org/10.1080/10503307.2023.2241626
• Carlbring, P., Andersson, G., Cuijpers, P., Riper, H., & Hedman-Lagerlöf, E. (2018). Internet-based vs. face-to-face cognitive behavior therapy for psychiatric and somatic disorders: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, 47(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/16506073.2017.1401115
• Cuijpers, P., van Straten, A., Andersson, G., & van Oppen, P. (2008). Psychotherapy for depression in adults: A meta-analysis of comparative outcome studies. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 76(6), 909–922. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013075
• Cuijpers, P., Berking, M., Andersson, G., Quigley, L., Kleiboer, A., & Dobson, K. S. (2013). A meta-analysis of cognitive-behavioural therapy for adult depression, alone and in comparison with other treatments. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 58(7), 376–385. https://doi.org/10.1177/070674371305800702
• Cuijpers, P., Sijbrandij, M., Koole, S. L., Andersson, G., Beekman, A. T., & Reynolds, C. F. (2013). The efficacy of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy in treating depressive and anxiety disorders: A meta-analytic review of direct comparisons. World Psychiatry, 12(2), 137–148. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20038
• Cuijpers, P., Sijbrandij, M., Koole, S. L., Andersson, G., Beekman, A. T., & Reynolds, C. F. (2014). Adding psychotherapy to antidepressant medication in depression and anxiety disorders: A meta-analysis. World Psychiatry, 13(1), 56–67. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20089
• Cuijpers, P., Noma, H., Karyotaki, E., Vinkers, C. H., Cipriani, A., & Furukawa, T. A. (2020). A network meta-analysis of the effects of psychotherapies, pharmacotherapies and their combination in the treatment of adult depression. World Psychiatry, 19(1), 92–107. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20701
• Ekers, D., Webster, L., van Straten, A., Cuijpers, P., Richards, D., & Gilbody, S. (2014). Behavioural activation for depression: An update of meta-analysis of effectiveness and sub group analysis. PLoS ONE, 9(6), e100100. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0100100
• Firth, J., et al. (2020). A meta-review of “lifestyle psychiatry”: The role of exercise, smoking, diet and sleep in the prevention and treatment of mental disorders. World Psychiatry, 19(3), 360–380. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20773
• Gonçalves, J. P. B., Lucchetti, G., Menezes, P. R., & Vallada, H. (2015). Religious and spiritual interventions in mental health care: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled clinical trials. Psychological Medicine, 45(14), 2937–2949. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0033291715001166
• Herrman, H., et al. (2022). Time for united action on depression: A Lancet–World Psychiatric Association Commission. The Lancet, 399(10328), 957–1022. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02141-3
• Karyotaki, E., et al. (2021). Internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy for depression: A systematic review and individual patient data network meta-analysis. JAMA Psychiatry, 78(4), 361–371. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2020.4364
• Kirsch, I., Deacon, B. J., Huedo-Medina, T. B., Scoboria, A., Moore, T. J., & Johnson, B. T. (2008). Initial severity and antidepressant benefits: A meta-analysis of data submitted to the Food and Drug Administration. PLoS Medicine, 5(2), e45. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050045
• Koenig, H. G. (2012). Religion, spirituality, and health: The research and clinical implications. ISRN Psychiatry, 2012, 278730. https://doi.org/10.5402/2012/278730
• Li, S., Okereke, O. I., Chang, S.-C., Kawachi, I., & VanderWeele, T. J. (2016). Religious service attendance and lower depression among women — a prospective cohort study. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 50(6), 876–884. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-016-9813-9
• Lucchetti, G., Koenig, H. G., & Lucchetti, A. L. G. (2021). Spirituality, religiousness, and mental health: A review of the current scientific evidence. World Journal of Clinical Cases, 9(26), 7620–7631. https://doi.org/10.12998/wjcc.v9.i26.7620
• Pearce, M. J., Koenig, H. G., Robins, C. J., Nelson, B., Shaw, S. F., Cohen, H. J., & King, M. B. (2015). Religiously integrated cognitive behavioral therapy: A new method of treatment for major depression in patients with chronic medical illness. Psychotherapy, 52(1), 56–66. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036448
• Schuch, F. B., Vancampfort, D., Richards, J., Rosenbaum, S., Ward, P. B., & Stubbs, B. (2016). Exercise as a treatment for depression: A meta-analysis adjusting for publication bias. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 77, 42–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2016.02.023
• Schuch, F. B., et al. (2018). Physical activity and incident depression: A meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. American Journal of Psychiatry, 175(7), 631–648. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2018.17111194
• Singh, B., et al. (2023). Effectiveness of physical activity interventions for improving depression, anxiety and distress: An overview of systematic reviews. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 57(18), 1203–1209. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2022-106195
• Smith, T. B., Bartz, J., & Richards, P. S. (2007). Outcomes of religious and spiritual adaptations to psychotherapy: A meta-analytic review. Psychotherapy Research, 17(6), 643–655. https://doi.org/10.1080/10503300701250347
• van Straten, A., van der Zweerde, T., Kleiboer, A., Cuijpers, P., Morin, C. M., & Lancee, J. (2018). Cognitive and behavioral therapies in the treatment of insomnia: A meta-analysis. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 38, 3–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2017.02.001

Method note: sources were identified via OpenAlex and Scite literature search and screened for retractions and editorial notices via Scite before citation; two candidate meta-analyses carrying editorial notices were excluded. Scripture quotations are from the ESV. This page was prepared with AI assistance and reviewed by Restored Life Counseling’s clinical staff.