Psychotherapy is a set of techniques believed to cure or to help solve behavioral and other psychological problems in humans. The common part of these techniques is direct personal contact between therapist and patient, mainly in the form of talking. Owing to the nature of these communications, there are significant issues of patient privacy and/or client confidentiality.
Schools and approaches
Psychoanalysis was the earliest form of psychotherapy, but many other theories and techniques are 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 the notion of "psyche" in the root of the word. This is especially true of the psychodynamic schools of psychotherapy, which today include Jungian therapy and Psychodrama. 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. An example would be Freudian psychotherapy. 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.
Cognitive behavioural therapy aims to treat specific symptoms or problems in a limited number of therapeutic sessions and for this reason 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, with results often more humorous (or bizarre) than realistic.
List of psychotherapeutic modalities
In the 20th century a bewildering range of psychotherapies sprang up in western societies.
The following is only a partial list:
- Analytical psychology
- Autogenic training
- Behavior therapy
- Biodynamic psychotherapy
- Bioenergetic analysis
- Bioenergetics
- Biofeedback
- Biosynthesis
- Brief therapy
- Choice theory
- Classical Adlerian
- Psychotherapy
- Co-Counselling
- Cognitive analytic
- psychotherapy
- Cognitive behavioural psychotherapy
- Concentrative movement therapy
- 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
- Focusing
- Freudian psychotherapy
- Gestalt therapy
- Gestalt Theoretical
- Psychotherapy
- Group therapy
- Hakomi
- Holotropic Breathwork
- Humanistic psychology
- Hypnotherapy
- Human givens psychotherapy
- Integrative Psychotherapy
- Jungian psychotherapy
- Logotherapy
- Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)
- Person centred psychotherapy
- 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
- Solution focused brief therapy
- 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
- Congruence
- Confrontation
- Dramatic re-enactment of past trauma
- Dream analysis and interpretation
- Empathy
- Hot seat
- Humor
- 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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