When giving friendly advice to anyone, the intention is to bring about a personal realization in the person who has problems. The thing with advice is that they provide answers to a dilemma that can both be helpful and also detrimental to the person involved. In what way, you ask? Well, it can be helpful in the sense that it urges the person to look and be aware of himself and the pattern of thinking he has allowed himself to fall into. It could also allow him to question the way by which he views things in hearing someone else’s viewpoint.
On the other hand, advices can be detrimental in the sense that the answer is merely imposed on the person that can further cause confusion and frustration. For example, some people would recommend others to recite the words, “In everyday and every way, I’m doing better and better”. For some who have taken on this advice, it makes them more positive and zealous to go about their day. But for some, it only made them feel worse because they feel how much these words contradict what they are feeling in the moment.
In giving advice, it’s better to let the depressed tell his story. Let him express his grievances first, if he is open to it. Then, try to ask questions that can lead him to his own realizations. Let him think, let him decide what he feels right. Question him further if you feel that his answers are not adequate enough as a response to his own situation. If it seems like his own thinking becomes wound up in circular arguments then it’s better to butt in and pinpoint clearly what he needs to do based on what he has been talking about. He’ll see that he already knows the answer but he’s just distracted from the other thoughts intervening in his head.
The depression hurts the depressed person is experiencing are big enough to make him give up so take things easily as you help him in curing depression naturally and on a personal level.