A THERAPY JOURNAL TO REDUCE DEPRESSION AND INCREASE MOTIVATION, PRODUCTIVITY AND JOY.

My wife, Kim had been struggling with depression since 2013, and it was debilitating - she needed to take time off from school, and graduating was an immense battle. This depression continued on after graduation, and after we got married. We tried therapist after therapist, with spotty levels of success.

We would find one therapist, and then we would move and struggle to find a new one. We’d find a good therapist, but she would admit that there were core things she couldn’t understand, like the struggles of being a new mom, or certain cultural issues.

Our job would change insurance companies and the good therapist was not longer in network. We kept trying to find the right fit but realized that all therapists are not equally trained or attuned to certain issues, and some therapists were honestly straight-up insensitive.

And I, Estepha was super frustrated. I was a therapist myself, knowing how hard I worked to make every single client feel heard and understood. Why wasn’t my wife getting the same treatment?

I was beginning to get overwhelmed and burnt out, too. It had now been a few years and so many life changes were happening around me; I finished grad school, got married, started a new career, and became a new dad, all in about a year. It all caught up with me. I began experiencing symptoms of depression too.

It was getting harder and harder to get out of bed. Commuting was a herculean task. By the time I got to the office it already felt like I had nothing left, I was tapped. I wanted to be there for my clients. I wanted to be present with my wife and baby daughter, but I just couldn't.

I was depressed. I needed to go to therapy.

But, it was basically impossible to find a therapist who I could afford who took our insurance.

With the weight of my family on my back, I was in tears going down the list, leaving voicemail after voicemail, just praying that somebody would pick up or call me back. I figured there had to be a better way.

That’s when I realized that if I’m a therapist and it’s this hard, there is no way someone else struggling with deep depression could find help if they needed it.

I knew that if we struggled with this, that means countless people are unable to find a therapist, or one who’s a good fit for them. I imagined how many people just give up because they need so much persistence to find one, but depression takes away your persistence.

My wife and I found our way through it, using the skills I had been trained in to help her. She took the skills and did what she usually does; she problem solved. Being a professional trained curriculum designer and organization planner herself, she started to see there was a way to help people with the same issues we had struggled with.

We realized that well-trained therapists were in short supply, and one the inadvertent blessings of the past few years was that I was in a pretty rigorous training program for therapists.

Over the years I had become trained in a number of therapies - CBT, TF-CBT, EMDR, MI, MDFT, Sand tray, EPT, & DBT. Which as we searched for a therapist, we realized was a rare occurrence.

We began to talk regularly about how to use the mental health skills in these therapies to move people forward, whether or not they could find a therapist. On the way, we founded Forward Ethos to do just that. We opened our own practice and started using it with our clients. And they started getting better.

Almost all of them.

Our clients got promotions. They left dead end jobs. They left toxic relationships. They started businesses. They did better, because they felt better. We have an over 90% success rate in treating depression with this model which has now helped hundreds of clients over thousands of sessions.

And now, we’re making this model available for anyone who wants to feel better so you can finally beat depression!

We’ve compiled the best practices from various evidence-based therapies that we have utilized in our own experience with depression and those of our clients to ensure that every lesson is attuned to the unique struggles that you face when depressed. We have thought through the difficulty that it takes to fight through even wanting to work through your depression.

This course has removed every possible barrier between you and getting help. We realize now that our experience with depression was a blessing in disguise, which was to give us a deep understanding of what it is that so many people suffer through.

With this guided journal, you no longer have to fight to find that perfect therapist who takes your insurance. You don't have to deal with starting over with a new therapist because you're misunderstood, or because you've moved.

From the comfort of your bed, from your phone or laptop, you can take hold of your life. You can finally experience the change that you feel is out of reach.

You can get that job that you've always wanted. You can have the relationships you've always deserved. You can live a life of balance and freedom and not have to worry about whether or not you're going to break. You can truly move forward again.

Estepha Francisque
CEO, Forward Ethos