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.

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.

Related Topics:
Psychoanalysis - Psychotherapist - Psychologists - Psychiatrists - Personal growth facilitators - Social workers - Group therapy

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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.

Related Topics:
Psychoanalytic - Rolfing - Postural integration

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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.

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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.

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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.

Related Topics:
Cognitive behavioural therapy - Insurance

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A computer program called ELIZA has been built to perform an automated and extremely simplified version of Rogerian psychotherapy.

Related Topics:
ELIZA - Rogerian psychotherapy

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There is considerable controversy over which form of psychotherapy 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. 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.

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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.

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