Depression is a direct result of human consciousness feeling as though it is in a freefall. Prayer is the process of tuning consciousness to higher levels, which will break the freefall pattern.
Another excellent technique I often utilize is to have a person in depression is to think of someone or something beginning with the letter “A” that they can feel gratitude for. Then work through the entire alphabet. By the time you get to “Z” you will be lifted up.
When I read your caption about demons creating depression, I thought you were going a different route that is also possible. This is much more difficult to remedy.
Depression results in life when a person is growing spiritually. It doesn’t feel that way when you are in it, but the end result can often be excellent as a person moves ahead in their life.
There are two main identities an individual experiences during life, “Dependency Identity and Self Identity.” When either identity is diminishing, a person will often experience depression if they do not formulate a focus on a pathway that moves them ahead. The path of focus for an individual leaving dependency is seeking validation of a healthy sense of self that will set them free. Teenage depression is created as consciousness moving forward without a focal point is much like a ballerina doing pirouettes across a dance floor without a focal point. They get dizzy and fall over. Or grab hold of someone to hold them from falling.
The same depression takes place as a person is losing their self identity. It can be the loss of a spouse, child, parent, job, or whatever a person utilizes to define who they are. It is a terrible freefall feeling. Many people will seek to redefine self in order to feel good about who they are and get rid of the depression, but this is usually temporary. This “mid life crisis” freefall leads one to the “dark night of the soul” experience.
If a person goes through the dark night of the soul experience and comes out the other side, they can transcend self and experience God’s Love first hand. This results in an inner peace and a freedom from the downward spiral.
Just as focusing on self identity gets a person out of dependency depression, focusing on God through prayer gets one out of a loss of self identity depression.
This process is not just theory, it is real and experiential. For the same reason that you cannot put new wine in an old wineskin, nor patch an old garment with new cloth, we must get rid of the old prior to bringing in the new. This very painful process of emptying self is what creates the feeling of depression. When we are full of our-self or full of others in dependency, we have no room for God.
By the way, we as a society are about to go through a great diminishing of self or mid-life crisis. While it will be very painful, it will help us turn to God for our strength.
You are using the term "depression" but in actuality are speaking only of mild, everyday mood disorders among functioning individuals, not clinical depression.
I have seen clinically depressed patients for whom the word "gratitude" would no longer have meaning, as they are so deeply despairing. For these patients only the hope of being put out of their misery somehow would evoke a feeling of hope or gratitude. They might offer the letters D - Death or S - Suicide. Patients with this degree of disabling depression would not be at all uncommon in a clinical setting.
Word games aren't going to do the trick with this population, believe me.