Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is a set of techniques intended to improve mental health, emotional or behavioral issues in individuals, who are often called "clients". These issues often make it hard for people to manage their lives and achieve their goals. Psychotherapy is aimed at these problems, and solves them via a number of different approaches and techniques; commonly psychotherapy involves a therapist and client(s), who discuss their issues in an effort to discover what they are and how they can solve them. Because sensitive topics are often discussed during psychotherapy, therapists are expected, and usually legally bound, to respect patient privacy and client confidentiality. See therapeutic frame for more.

General description

Given that psychotherapy is a kind of treatment restricted mostly to verbal exchanges, practitioners do not have to be medically qualified. In most countries, however, psychotherapists must be trained, certified and licensed with a range of different licensing schemes and qualification requirements in place around the world. Psychotherapists may be psychologists, social workers, trained nurses, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, or professionals of other mental health disciplines. Psychiatrists' training focuses on the prescription of medicines, with some training in psychotherapy. Psychologists have special training in mental health assessment and research in addition to psychotherapy. Social workers have special training in linking patients to community and institutional resources.

Related Topics:
Certified - Licensed - Psychologists - Social workers - Nurses - Psychiatrists - Psychoanalysts

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Recent trends in drug development to treat chemical imbalances have led to a more wide spread use of pharmaceuticals in conjunction with psychotherapy by medically qualified mental health nurse practitioners, psychiatrists, and in some states prescribing psychologists . While having benefits for patients with ailments such as bipolar disorder, impulse problems, schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorder, drugs of late have begun to be used as a 'quick fix' and are gaining less favor in the therapeutic community.http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1175/is_4_35/ai_91752194http://www.jaacap.com/pt/re/jaacap/fulltext.00004583-200003000-00002.htm;jsessionid=CewKr8B1H4krAcX66Sp9py2il3Lhvj21diCWPmXQ6uE2Slf0PoKl!-2006515172!-949856031!9001!-1

Related Topics:
Pharmaceuticals - Psychiatrist - Bipolar disorder - Schizophrenia - Obsessive compulsive disorder

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There are at least five main systems of psychotherapy:

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• psychodynamic,
• cognitive and
• humanistic/supportive
• behaviorism
• Brief counseling

:For an idea of the range of different kinds of psychotherapies, see the list of psychotherapies.

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