Mental Health and Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is usually used alone or in combination with drugs to treat mental illnesses. Known as therapy for short, the term psychotherapy in fact involves different treatment techniques. During psychotherapy the person suffering from a mental illness talks to a licensed and trained mental health care professional. The therapist helps the patient recognize and solve the reasons that triggers their illness.
Psychotherapy - How does it help?
Psychotherapy assists people suffering with a mental disorder:
To understand the ideas, emotions and behaviors that causes their illness.
To understand and recognize the events or problems such as a major illness, job loss, a death in the family or a divorce that contributed to their mental illness. It assists them to understand the aspects of the problems they might be able to improve or solve.
Get back a sense of control and find pleasure in life.
Learn how to cope and develop problem-solving skills.
Types of Therapy
Therapy can be administered in different formats, such as:
Individual where the therapy involves just the patient and the therapist.
Group: Here two or more patients might take part in the therapy at the same time. Patients can share experiences and find out that there are others who feel the same way as they do and have had similar experiences.
Marital/couples: This therapy assists spouses and partners to understand the reason their loved one suffers from a mental disorder, how effective communication and change in behaviors can be of help, and how they can cope with the same.
Family: As family plays a main role in a person’s life, it can help people with mental illness get better soon. It is important for the family members of the patient to understand what the patient goes through, how they can help the patient and how they themselves can cope with the situation.
Therapy - Approaches
Therapy can be done in many formats such as group, family and individual. There are different other approaches that mental health professionals employ for therapy. After discussing with the patient in the matters of their disorder, the therapist decides on the approach to be used to deal and solve the factors that contribute to the condition.
Various approaches to therapy could include:
Psychodynamic Therapy
Psychodynamic therapy is based on the supposition that the mental illness of a person is due to unresolved, usually unconscious conflicts usually stemming since childhood. This therapy seeks to make a patient to understand and cope with such feelings by discussing the experiences. Psychodynamic therapy is lasts for more than three to four months, though it could be for longer durations, possibly even years.
Interpersonal Therapy
The focus of interpersonal therapy is on the behavior and interactions of a patient with family and friends. The main goal of this therapy is improvement of communication skills and boosting self-esteem in a short time frame. It often lasts for a period of three to four months and is effective for depression that is a result of mourning, relationship conflicts, social isolation and major life events.
Psychodynamic and interpersonal therapies assist patients find a solution to mental illness that is caused by:
Grief (loss)
Conflict in relationship
Role transitions (for instance becoming a caregiver or mother)
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive-behavioral therapy assists people having mental illness to recognize and alter inaccurate perceptions that they might have of either themselves or the world in general. The therapist could help the patient to find out new ways of thinking by focusing attention on the right and wrong presumptions they have of themselves and others.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy is suggested for patients:
Who consider and behave in ways that set off and be responsible for mental illness.
Who have mild-to-moderate depression and are on treatment alone or in combination with antidepressant medication
Who decline or are not able to take antidepressant drugs.
Of all ages groups with mental illness that causes disability, interpersonal problems or suffering.
Therapy - Tips
Therapy is most effective when you do not miss any of your scheduled appointments. The efficacy of therapy is dependent on your active participation. It needs effort, time and regularity.
As you start therapy, set up some goals with the help of your therapist. After this you should devout adequate time by occasional review of your progress with the help of your therapist. In case you are not happy with the approach of your therapist of if you think it is not helping you, discuss your concern with them and go for a second opinion if you both agree but do not stop therapy suddenly.
Beginning therapy - Tips
Below are some tips that can help in case you are beginning therapy for the first time:
Recognize the source of stress. Maintain a journal and make a note of stressful and encouraging events.
Reorganize priorities and highlight the effective and positive behavior.
Make time for pleasurable and recreational activities.
Communicate - clarify and affirm your requirements to a person you trust; maintain a journal to put across your feelings.
Make an effort to focus on positive results and find ways to reduce and manage stress.
Bear in mind, therapy entails assessing your thoughts and behaviors, recognizing stresses that add to your condition, and finding ways to modify both. People actively participating in therapy recover faster and have less relapses.
In addition, remember that therapy is treatment that focuses particular causes of mental illness and does not give instant results. It takes longer to start working when compared to medication, but there is proof to imply that it has long lasting effects. Medication might be required right away in cases of serious mental illness; nevertheless the combination of medication and therapy is very effectual.
