In this short video, I explain why depression is rarely laziness or weakness, and how we begin to understand it together when we meet by video.
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Online depression therapy helps you make sense of a mood that has sunk and stayed down, an energy that has drained away and a world that no longer reaches you. You and I talk by video, in English, and each 1-hour booking holds 50 minutes of depression work, scheduled around your own time zone.
I help you understand what the heaviness carries, where it started and what keeps it in place, so you can take your life back step by step rather than wait for the fog to lift on its own. I do not diagnose or prescribe. Within my online psychotherapy, this page carries the work on low mood. Three narrower pages sit beneath it, for high-functioning depression, for emptiness and numbness and for loneliness, in case one of them names your experience more exactly.
You can have a free 30-minute call with me, book a video session, read my client policy or write to me.
Online depression therapy is for English-speaking adults, wherever they live, who have felt dim, slow and unlike themselves for a long stretch, sometimes so long they cannot date the start. Getting through an ordinary day costs far more than it used to, and the future looks shut. You are looking for someone who can help you make sense of it, by video, without having to explain yourself in a second language.
Low mood has more than one face, and some of them are met more precisely elsewhere. If one of these lines sounds more like you, its link will serve you better.
You can also send me an email
These reviews describe clients’ experiences of working with me. They come from my wider practice and do not all relate to online sessions. Each person’s experience is their own, and a review does not promise a particular outcome.
“In more than 20 years of sitting with people, I have come to believe that depression is very often a stopped feeling rather than a missing one. Anger that was never safe to show, grief that nobody had time for, a longing that was quietly shamed. The mind lowers the volume on everything, and life goes grey. Underneath the flatness I often hear a frightened voice asking ‘Would anyone notice if I just disappeared?’ and a guarded one saying ‘Leave me alone, I will get through this by myself.’ Sometimes one person says both in a single breath: ‘Please reach me, but do not look at me too closely.’ When we find the feeling that was stopped, the greyness usually begins to make sense.”
Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist and EFT couples therapist
I am Mark Colclough, MA. I have practised since 2004 and offer online psychotherapy and couples therapy in English.
My training brings together your emotions, your thoughts and your relationships. My deep passion is the moment when what happens between you finally makes sense, to each of you and to each other. I have lived and worked in nine countries, so I know something of life across languages, cultures and borders.
Read about my background, or explore online psychotherapy and online couples therapy.
I meet regularly with experienced psychotherapists to reflect on my work, question my understanding and develop my skills. Supervision is part of the professional care I bring to individual and couples work, including online sessions.
My focus is thoughtful practice, integrity and responsibility.
You are welcome to ask about the kind of support you need.
Tell me where you are based and your time zone. We can then consider whether online sessions together are suitable.
Isabel is 36, a Spanish architect who has lived in Melbourne for 7 years with her Australian husband. Since June, the start of the southern winter, she has slept ten hours a night and woken heavy-limbed. She used to swim at the ocean pool on Saturdays and now her costume sits dry in a drawer. She cries in the car before work, then smiles through meetings. On Sunday calls her mother asks why she looks so pale, and Isabel changes the subject.
With Isabel, my first question would be about June itself: what arrived in her life then, and whom she has told. By the end of a first video session she might connect the drop in her mood to her father’s heart surgery in Seville, and to a fear she has kept from her husband so as not to burden him.
I have presented this clinical example as a compound of 22 years of clinical practice.
You have rested, pushed yourself and waited for it to pass, and the heaviness is still there every morning.
There is no right moment and no correct reason to start therapy for depression. The sense that life has gone dim, or that you have drifted away from yourself, is reason enough. You do not need a diagnosis, a clear explanation or a breakdown before you contact me. In 22 years of practice I have sat with low mood in many forms, and I can tell when a hard season has become a pattern that needs proper attention.
With me, you will start to see the shape of your depression: what feeds it, what has kept it there and where change can begin. These 6 questions can help you decide whether now is the time to get in touch.
If it does, that matters. You cancel what you can and spend evenings on the sofa feeling guilty.
I would look at how long this has lasted, whether it has deepened, and what was happening in your life when it began. That helps us tell a tired patch from a low mood that is settling in for the long term. If you recognise yourself here, book a session with me and we can begin to understand it.
Those two wishes are not a contradiction so much as two guards at different doors. One part longs for someone to notice how bad it is and come close. Another part pulls the curtains, because being seen in this state feels unbearable or shameful.
I will not ask you to silence either one. In the psychosynthesis tradition I trained in, we listen to each inner voice as part of the whole person. I help you understand what the wish for company is asking for and what the wish for solitude is guarding, so that you can choose how much contact you want rather than swing between them.
When your mood is low, a short reply or a cancelled call can land like proof that you are too much. You apologise for being dull and wonder whether friends stay out of duty.
Your need to matter to people is real, and I will not treat it as weakness. What I help you change is the alarm that turns ordinary distance into rejection. We look at where that fear first took hold, often long before the depression, and you practise telling people plainly what you need from them.
Yes, many people do, and it confuses them as much as anyone. You text a friend late at night, then go quiet when they reply. You ask your partner to stay close, then feel suffocated and turn away. Wanting warmth and fearing it can follow each other fast.
In our sessions I slow this sequence down so we can find the exact moment the wish for comfort turns into a wish to hide. I respect what these reactions protect, and I will also ask you to take responsibility for the ones that leave people you love confused and shut out.
When your reserves are empty, another person’s feelings or requests can feel like a weight you cannot lift. You go flat, give short answers or disappear into your phone. Withdrawal feels like the only way to survive the day.
My view is that the retreat is doing a job, and needing space is nothing to be ashamed of. I help you see what the distance shields you from, so you can stay in contact a little longer without feeling swallowed. You learn to say “I can listen for ten minutes tonight” instead of vanishing until the other person stops asking.
After months of low mood it is hard to remember that you once had opinions, plans and a sense of humour. You may have bent yourself to a demanding job, a family’s hopes or a new country’s ways for so long that you no longer know what you want. That is the cost of long adaptation, not a sign that you are broken.
I help you look at what you have given up, what you inherited from your family and what still belongs to you. I will challenge you when I hear you writing yourself off, but I will not hand you a ready-made identity. The aim is a clearer sense of who you are and what kind of life fits you now.
If these questions touched something, book a free call to talk it through, or choose a session time if you already know you want to start.
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Tell me briefly what kind of support you are looking for.
Include your country and time zone so we can discuss whether online work together is possible and find a suitable time.
You do not need to explain your whole story in your first message.
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Understanding why your mood sank is important, but the work also has to change how you spend your days, rest and reach for people.
Working on depression with me will help you understand what is happening inside you, see the patterns that keep the low mood going and make changes you can feel in your week. Insight alone rarely lifts it.
In 22 years of practice I have learned that I need to take an active part. Expect me to speak up, offer what I see in you and argue with the verdicts your low mood passes on you. The 6 questions below describe what we work towards.
For men: online therapy for depression in men. Related reading: What is the point of life when nothing moves me?, Why do I feel so flat since moving abroad? and Why do I feel so flat when my life is going fine?.
I help you separate the heart of the difficulty from the symptoms gathered around it. Tiredness, poor sleep and a flat outlook are real, yet they are often the result of something else: a loss not mourned, anger turned against yourself, a life arranged around other people’s needs.
I will tell you what I think is going on, what needs attention first and which explanations are keeping you down. When you are ready, book a session with me and we start to trace where the heaviness came from.
You can learn to recognise the early signs. A low spell often starts with small things: skipping a meal, cancelling one plan, a harsh sentence about yourself that goes unchallenged. Seeing the first step gives you a moment in which to choose something else.
In sessions I help you slow this sequence down, notice what sets it off and see what it protects you from. Spotting it is only the start. We practise a different response together, until you can use it on an ordinary grey afternoon when I am not there.
Staying with a feeling does not mean being swallowed by it or forcing a cheerful face. It means being present enough to notice what you feel, name it and decide what to do next. Felt sadness tends to move.
I help you notice earlier when you are going numb or flooding, and what your body is reacting to. Between sessions I will ask you to practise small things every day, such as a short walk, a phone call or five minutes of writing, because change depends on what you do in the week.
Clear words start with knowing what you feel and what you need. When you are low, it is easy to say nothing, to joke it away or to apologise for being a burden before you have asked for anything. Unspoken needs then turn into resentment, and the resentment deepens the low mood.
I help you find words that are honest, specific and sized to the moment. I will challenge you when you silence yourself, and also when you expect others to read your mind. Sometimes we rehearse a real call with a parent on another continent.
It helps to hear the low mood as one voice in the room, rather than the truth about your options. Low mood tells you that every option is bad and every effort wasted, so you postpone, and the postponing decides for you.
I help you look at your options as they really are and what each one would ask of you. You get my honest view, and I will say so when I see you avoiding a choice, but the decision stays with you.
Lasting change has to reach beyond our sessions into your mornings, your work and your relationships. You may need firmer limits, more rest, people who know how you really are, or a rhythm to the week that includes things you enjoy and not only things you owe.
I help you decide what needs to change and what can stay as it is. Your sensitivity and seriousness are part of you, and they are not the problem. The aim is a life in which your choices follow your values instead of the heaviness.
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Come as you are, tired and unsure. No label, timeline or speech is needed. We begin with this week and the change you would like.
When you begin, I listen carefully, help you name the main difficulty and give our work a direction from the first session.
Online depression therapy is one focused part of my online psychotherapy, structured individual work on your inner life and relationships. Sometimes the heaviness is really about the distance between you and a partner. Where that is so, and they are willing, online couples therapy offers long-term relational development and healing. When you already know the work will take some months, a therapy bundle gives you real savings and the safety of a plan agreed at the start.
In the first session I ask what has brought you now, how the low mood shows itself, how long it has been there, what you have tried and what you hope will change.
Before we finish, I share my first understanding and suggest where we might begin. From there, you can judge whether my style fits what you need. If you would rather talk first, book a free 30-minute call.
Individual work fits when the low mood lives mainly in you: in your history, your inner voice, your energy and the way you meet work and relationships. We can look at your relationships in depth without anyone else joining.
I offer direction, continuity and honest challenge from session to session. When the mood is only one thread in a larger knot, online psychotherapy sets out how my structured individual work handles the whole of it.
Sometimes it is the bond itself, more than your mood, that needs regular and shared work. If your mood drops around your partner, if you have drifted into silence together, if trust has been broken, or if one of you keeps pursuing while the other withdraws, working together usually helps more.
In couples work I help you both see the cycle between you, own your share of it and find safer ways of being together. Online couples therapy is long-term relational development and healing, and some people work on their depression alone first and turn to couples sessions later.
The pace depends on how deep the low mood goes, how much strength you have right now and how much continuity you need to keep going.
With depression I usually recommend weekly sessions at the start, because long gaps let the heaviness close over again. I will tell you if we are meeting too rarely, and when it is safe to space sessions out. If you travel a lot, sessions can sometimes be placed back-to-back over a few days.
A bundle fits when you already know the work will take several sessions and you would rather not decide after each one whether to continue. A planned course takes that question away.
A bundle lowers the cost of each session and gives you the security of an agreed plan. Look at therapy discounts and bundles, or at the bundle cards lower on this page, to weigh up a course for your low mood.
Therapy has done its job when you have more energy, clarity and choice, and the low mood has changed enough for you to manage without the same support.
I talk openly with you about how far we have come, and I would rather you leave well than stay out of habit. Sessions can thin out, pause or end once the work has done its part. Returning one day with a new difficulty says nothing bad about what we did before.
Not sure this is the right place to begin? Here is how online depression therapy compares with the options people with low mood most often consider.
| Option | Choose it when | Pace |
|---|---|---|
| Online depression therapy (this page) | A long low spell is making basic daily tasks feel hard. | Weekly 1-hour video sessions at first |
| Online psychotherapy | You want to look at your life broadly, with low mood as one theme among several. | 1-hour video sessions at a pace you choose |
| Online high-functioning depression therapy | You keep functioning well, and the heaviness stays hidden behind it. | Weekly or fortnightly video sessions |
| Online grief therapy | Your low mood started with a death or a loss that still needs mourning. | Regular video sessions over some months |
It is one-to-one psychotherapy by video, in English, for adults who have been living under a heavy mood and want to know what it means. It looks beneath the symptoms at what the depression holds: feelings, losses, relationships and patterns that go back a long way.
I work in depth with the whole person rather than only the symptom, including your body, your history and what you inherited from your family. I do not diagnose or prescribe. Within my online psychotherapy, it is the branch for low mood.
Come when low mood has lasted for weeks, when it is costing you work, sleep or relationships, or when you have stopped doing the things that used to keep you well. If part of you is worried, take that worry seriously.
I look at how long the heaviness has been there, whether it is deepening and what you have given up because of it. In 22 years of practice I have seen that people tend to wait far too long, because they are still getting through the day.
Yes, often it can. Long depression tends to be bound up with the ways you once kept yourself going, and those ways can be looked at and slowly loosened. I make no promise about the size of the change, and I will not pretend it happens fast.
In my clinical experience, people who have felt low for a long time often find that the depression once made sense: it kept them quiet in a loud home, or small in a critical one. Together we look at what it protected then and whether you still need it.
That is a question for your doctor, and I would encourage you to ask it. I do not diagnose or prescribe, and I will never tell you to stop medication you are taking.
What I offer is psychotherapy: a place to understand what the low mood is about and change what keeps it going. People do this both with and without medication. If your doctor is involved, we can work in a way that fits with that.
Because reaching out and pulling back are both ways of trying to feel safe. Some people cling and need to hear they still matter. Others go silent and try to wait it out alone. It is how you learned to manage pain, not a flaw in your character.
I help you see which way you move when you are low, what each move is trying to do and what it costs you and the people around you. Then we build other options, such as asking clearly for company or taking space without disappearing.
We start wherever you are. If words are slow, I ask simple questions and we go at your pace. I want to know how the low mood shows up in your body, thoughts and days, and what you hope will change. By the end you will have my first understanding and a suggested direction.
You do not need to prepare anything. Many people feel flat or tearful in the first session, and that is fine. When you feel ready, choose a first appointment, or talk to me for 30 minutes free beforehand.
Think in months of regular sessions, not a few talks. That is often enough to understand what drives the low mood and to begin changing it.
In 22 years of practice I have seen that a clear first stretch, reviewed openly, works far better than drifting along. At each review we decide together whether to continue, meet less often or end.
For most people, yes. When getting dressed and travelling across town feels impossible, being able to meet from your own room can be what makes therapy happen at all.
You need a private space, headphones, a steady connection and a laptop or tablet rather than a phone. The booking calendar shows each time in your own time zone, and we can talk through any practical doubts on a free call.
Depression therapy with me is individual psychotherapy, booked as 1-hour online sessions that each hold 50 minutes of therapy. You will find the current fees, in US dollars, on my prices page.
Because working on depression usually takes a number of sessions, a therapy bundle saves you 10 per cent on each one and gives you a structured plan. Bundle sizes for low-mood work are on therapy discounts and bundles.
Book your first session in the calendar, or ask for a free 30-minute call if you would like to talk before deciding. All times show in your own local time zone.
Should no slot fit, or the low mood become hard to hold this week, send me a message. I keep some space open for acute cases, usually with a time inside a few days, which is explained on acute online psychotherapy. Pick a time, and we will start from where you are.
You can also send me an email
I want therapy to help you understand your experience and make choices you can use in everyday life. We pay attention to feelings, needs and the responses that happen before you have time to think.
Our online room should offer enough trust and honesty to explore what is difficult. I bring attention and professional judgement. You bring your experience, questions and the right to say when something does not fit.
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