| Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a set of techniques intended to cure or improve
psychological and behavioral or emotional problems in humans. The
commonest form of psychotherapy is direct personal contact between
therapist and patient, mainly in the form of talking. Because sensitive
topics are often discussed during psychotherapy, therapists are
expected, and usually legally bound, to respect patient privacy
and client confidentiality.
Schools and approaches
Psychoanalysis was the earliest form of psychotherapy, but many
other theories and techniques are also now used by psychotherapists,
psychologists, psychiatrists, personal growth facilitators and social
workers. Techniques for group therapy have been developed.
While behaviour is often a target of the work, many approaches
value working with feelings and thoughts. This is especially true
of the psychodynamic schools of psychotherapy, which today include
Jungian therapy and Psychodrama as well as the psychoanalytic schools.
Other approaches focus on the link between the mind and body and
try to access deeper levels of the psyche through manipulation of
the physical body. Examples are Rolfing, Pulsing and Postural Integration.
A distinction can also be made between those psychotherapies that
employ a medical model and those that employ a humanistic model.
In the medical model the client is seen as unwell and the therapist
employs their skill to help them back to health. In the humanistic
model the therapist facilitates learning in the individual and the
clients own natural process draws them to a fuller understanding
of themselves. An example would be Gestalt therapy.
Some psychodynamic practitioners distinguish between more uncovering
and more supportive psychotherapy. Uncovering psychotherapy emphasizes
facilitating clients' insight into the roots of their difficulties.
The best-known example of an uncovering psychotherapy is classical
psychoanalysis. Supportive psychotherapy, by contrast, stresses
strengthening clients' defenses and often providing encouragement
and advice. Depending on the client's personality, a more supportive
or more uncovering approach may be optimal.
Cognitive behavioural therapy is particularly common where the
mode of psychotherapy is dictated by the demands of insurance companies
who wish to see a financially limited commitment.
A computer program called ELIZA has been built to perform an automated
and extremely simplified version of Rogerian psychotherapy.
There is considerable controversy over which form of psychotherpy
is most effective, and more specifically, which types of therapy
are optimal for treating which sorts of problems. Psychotherapy
outcome research -in which the effectiveness of psychotherapy is
measured by questionnaires given to patients before, during, and
after treatment- has had difficulty distinguishing between the different
types of therapy. All types of therapy show overall effectiveness,
with none showing significantly better results than any of the others.
Many psychotherapists believe that the nuances of psychotherapy
cannot be captured by this type of research, and prefer to rely
on their own clinical experiences and conceptual arguments to support
the type of treatment they practice.
Research has clearly shown, however, that the quality of the relationship
between therapist and patient is a crucial predictor of psychotherapy
outcome. In light of this finding, some have argued that the type
of psychotherapy by which a patient is treated is much less important
than the patient's rapport with the therapist. Accordingly, most
contemporary schools of psychotherapy focus on the healing power
of the therapeutic relationship.
Person centred psychotherapy
Person centred psychotherapy was developed by Carl Rogers. He referred
to it as counselling rather than psychotherapy. He also believed
that the relationship between the client and the therapist is not
a patient-doctor relationship in which the patient passively submits
to something that is done to him/her by the healer. On the contrary,
it should be a person-to-person relationship in which the therapists
talks with the client. By using the word "client" instead
of "patient," Rogers wanted to indicate that the client
is not sick in any organic sense.
List of psychotherapies
In the 20th century many psychotherapies appeared in western societies.
- Adlerian therapy
- Analytical psychology
- Art Therapy
- Autogenic psychotherapy
- Behavior therapy
- Biodynamic psychotherapy
- Bioenergetic analysis
- Biosynthesis
- Brief therapy
- Classical Adlerian Psychotherapy
- Co-Counselling
- Cognitive analytic psychotherapy
- Cognitive behavioural psychotherapy
- Concentrative movement therapy
- Contemplative Psychotherapy
- Core process psychotherapy
- Daseins analytic psychotherapy
- Depth Psychology
- Dialectical behavior therapy
- Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)
- Encounter groups
- Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Existential analysis
- Family systems therapy
- Feminist therapy
- Focusing
- Freudian psychotherapy
- Gestalt therapy
- Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy
- Group therapy
- Holotropic Breathwork
- Humanistic psychology
- Hypnotherapy
- Integrative Psychotherapy
- Jungian psychotherapy
- Logotherapy
- Multimodal Therapy
- Narrative Therapy
- Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)
- Personal construct psychology (PCP)
- Positive psychotherapy
- Postural integration
- Primal integration
- Process Oriented Psychology
- Primal therapy
- Provocative therapy
- Psychedelic psychotherapy
- Psychoanalysis
- Psychodrama
- Psychodynamic psychotherapy
- Psycho-Organic analysis
- Psychosynthesis
- Pulsing (bodywork)
- Rational emotive behaviour psychotherapy
- Reality therapy
- Reichian psychotherapy
- Rogersian (or Rogerian) psychotherapy
- Rolfing
- Sophia analysis
- Self Relationship (or Sponsorship)
- Systemic therapy
- T Groups
- Transactional analysis (TA)
- Transpersonal psychotherapy
List of techniques used in psychotherapy
The following techniques may be employed in psychotherapy although
which are used will depend on the nature of the therapy
- Art work
- Dance movement therapy
- Catharsis
- Coaching
- Dream analysis and interpretation
- Empathy
- Hot seat
- Hypnosis
- Journal work
- Massage
- Minimal Encouragers
- Paradoxical intention
- Reflective Listening
- Regression
- Role play
- Sand play
- Unconditional positive regard
- Validation
- Working through Projections
- Working through Transference
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