Tag: lawyer

How EMDR Therapy Can Help Lawyers Overcome Depression

Jennifer Kupferman, LMSW, MA, JD, is a former lawyer turned therapist who specializes in treating lawyers with a variety of mental health conditions, including depression. She earned her law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and her undergraduate degree from Yale. In addition to being a therapist, she gives CLE presentations on mental health in the legal profession throughout the U.S. Call or Email Jennifer now for a free 15-minute consultation – (929) 202-4159.

Introduction

The legal profession is known for its prestige, intellectual challenge, and social impact. Yet, behind the polished courtroom arguments and carefully constructed contracts lies a more troubling reality: lawyers experience disproportionately high rates of depression, anxiety, and burnout. A 2016 study by the American Bar Association and the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation revealed that 28% of lawyers struggle with depression, a rate much higher than in the general population.

While traditional treatments such as talk therapy and medication have helped many, a growing number of lawyers are turning to an alternative, neuroscience-based therapy known as EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). Originally developed to treat trauma, EMDR is gaining attention as a powerful tool for those suffering from depression, especially when that depression is rooted in unresolved emotional stress, perfectionism, or adverse life experiences.

In this post, I’ll explore why depression is so prevalent in the legal field and how EMDR can provide real, lasting relief for lawyers who are silently suffering.

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Bottoms Up: My Drunk Dad, My Depression

My dad was an alcoholic.

He died at age 56 from too much drinking. Almost 40 years ago.

I was 19 at the time, a sophomore at a local state college. I lived upstairs from my Polish grandma who, was a big woman with arms as strong as an elephant’s trunk.

One morning, my Aunt Clara, who, with her husband Eddie (who was genuinely cross-eyed), lived with grandma downstairs, came up to tell me, “Your father died today.”

I had never heard my dad called “father.” It sounded formal, like, “The President of the United States died today.”

My dad had been ill for months. The year he died, 1981, Hospice wasn’t around. Most people, as sick as my dad with cancer and cirrhosis of the liver, met their end in the hospital.

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Too Much Depression, Too Little Sleep: 3 Things You Can Do to Get a Better Night’s Slumber

The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to. – F. Scott Fitzgerald

When first diagnosed with depression, my sleep became fragmented in a way I had never experienced before.

Before this time, I, like most frenzied lawyers, had periods of restless sleep tinged by stress and anxiety. But my sleep would return to normal after a lengthy trial or round of contentious depositions.

But this was different.

Lots of Depression, Little Sleep

I was always tired, but couldn’t sleep through the night. I went to bed early, exhausted from trying to make it through another day with depression. Trouble sleeping is a symptom of major depression.  Kay Redfield Jamison, M.D., a psychiatrist, writes:

The body is bone-weary; there is no will; nothing is that is not an effort, and nothing at all seems worth it. Sleep is fragmented, elusive, or all-consuming. Like an unstable, gas, an irritable exhaustion seeps into every crevice of thought and action.”

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