Psychotherapy is the medical practice of treating mental health problems via discussions with a qualified professional known as a psychotherapist. There are many different types of psychotherapy but the basic principle is that talking through your mental anguishes releases you of their burdens. It is far better to do that with someone who is qualified to listen, understand, diagnose and treat your issues, than to talk it over with someone who, while they have their place, will simply give you a hug and tell you that it’s all going to be alright.
Here are five techniques that psychotherapists use to treat their patients.
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is the examination of a patient’s psyche by a learned psychotherapist. It requires that the patient and psychotherapist develop a working partnership, it requires a degree of cooperation between patient and doctor, as patients learn about themselves by exploring their own relationships. It is not so much a doctor telling you what is wrong with you, than a doctor asking you to tell them what is wrong with you by examining your own actions and the reasons for them. The doctor may then offer you solutions to help you treat your own mental illness by examining your thought processes at the time. Psychoanalysis is usually an incredibly introspective type of psychotherapy.
Behavior Therapy
Behavior therapy is the examination of one’s behavior by a qualified psychotherapist and making attempts to rectify said behavior. A good example of this is known as “classical conditioning” and is evident in Ivan Pavlov’s dog experimentation. Classical conditioning is essentially the conditioning of a subject to change their behavior in some way through repeated action — this is also known as “desensitizing”, in an instance where the patient is “facing their fears” in an effort to conquer those fears.
Cognitive Therapy
Cognitive therapy takes a deep dive into the human mind as an explanation for the actions of the individual. Cognitive therapists’ study what people think, rather than what they do and attempt to offer solutions that require patients to change their thinking around a particular problem, thereby, hypothetically changing their actions and therefore the outcomes.
Humanistic Therapy
Humanistic therapy is all about personal development. It emphasizes the ability of the individual to make rational choices about their lives and seeks to empower them to do so. Humanistic therapy centers around compassion and flips the therapy dynamic on it’s head to facilitate the empowerment of the client. There’s also a focus on free will and self-determination.
Holistic Therapy
Holistic therapy, as the name suggests is a whole-of-discipline approach to therapy. Rather than narrowing one’s problems and their ability to be solved down to a single therapeutic method, many — most — therapists will embrace different parts of all of the methodology to help their patients solve their problems. Not all therapy is holistic, but most therapists are.
If you want to know more, get in touch with our team to discuss.