Hi Emilovee,

Whether a person can get through depression on their own depends on the individual and the severity of his depression. If his situation is getting worse, it indicates that his coping mechanisms are deterorating and once he starts looking for work, his anxieties is likely to increase. The application process, job interviews and rejections are difficult to deal with at the best of times and people with depression tends to internalise a lot of this stress (e.g. that I am not good enough) rather than seeing it all as part of the process. Things can go down hill quickly when your negative thoughts are validated by external rejections.

Before jumping into action, have a chat with your boyfriend to see what he wants to do to address this. For some people, recognising that there is an issue and that he wants to do something about it is the toughest step. It is good that you two have a supportive/loving relationship as it will require trust and patience on both sides to see this through.

If psychological counselling is a path that he wants to consider, I have a few suggestions that may help to prevent the situation that happend to your cousin (it’s actually illegal to do what they did to your cousin in Australia). Firstly, do some research on the counselling service before your visit (e.g. small private practices usually don’t usually have burly mental health nurses on site to institutionalise someone), ring them about their procedures before visiting (e.g. how do you manage people that are self harm/suicde risk, how do you assess for these, what are your mandatory reporting requirements etc), accompany your boyfriend for the visit and ask the psychiatrist about your concerns in person before he sign anything. Note that they cannot lie to you about these things without breaching their professional conduct as it makes them liable for law suits.

Hope it works out Emilovee.