Psychotherapy Techniques

There are a lot of therapeutic techniques that can be considered to be a part of the umbrella of psychotherapy. Even as a therapist could find that a particular technique suits a person the best, usually the therapist will utilize various other techniques with the same person based on the problems that the person experiences.

Behavior Therapy

The focus of behavior therapy is to change the self-depreciating and unwanted behavior patterns of a person through conditioning. Essentially, this technique is getting rid of detrimental habits and to replace that behavior with more agreeable and worthwhile behavior. Behavior therapy could help a person to alter their responses to stress or prevail over an overwhelming phobia.

Cognitive Therapy

Cognitive therapy seeks to find out the core thought patterns and fundamental beliefs that are the basis of unwanted emotions and feelings. The essential idea is that what we think of a situation is what creates our emotions with regards to that particular situation and usually these thoughts are based on unreasonable or worrying core beliefs that we may not even be aware of consciously. For instance, a perfectionist could be suffering from anxiety due to the strain that they put themselves through. Cognitive therapy could assist this person to understand that their thoughts are too rigid and that it is not rational to be perfect all the time.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive-Behavioral therapy (CBT) combines the above techniques, and is the most accepted therapy to deal with anxiety and depression. It focuses to change thoughts and behaviors simultaneously in order to assist the person to not only go further than the negative core beliefs that hampers their life but also to modify the behavior patterns they have built up as a result of those thought patterns. Usually, it is the difficult behavior that initially leads a person to therapy, and subsequently, after the therapist helps in modification of behavior, the person reaches a position to work towards altering the negative thoughts that produces the difficult behavior.

Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt therapy is found on the philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology which essentially means that it is necessary to understand the how we are related to everything around us, and we should observe and study the things happening in the present moment so as to truly be familiar with ourselves. Gestalt vision of human understanding could be better described by the saying - Man is not an island unto himself. According o this theory, everything is interrelated and a person cannot understand himself without concurrently understanding the world around him.

Interpersonal Therapy

In the case of interpersonal therapy (IPT), attention is paid to improve relationship skills for instance to communicate and improve the supporting relationships in the life of an anxious or depressed person. Learning to handle loved ones in a more helpful and less aggressive way can result in improvement of these relationships and helps in reducing the conflicts that may be a contributing factor for anxiety or depression.

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysts act a guide to the patient on a trip through their unconscious so as to discover and realize internal conflicts that could be causing emotional disturbances. Mutually, the client and the therapist analyze childhood problems, unconscious reasons, unsettled conflicts as well as destructive behavior patterns to increase self-awareness and resolution. Freud is considered the father of psychoanalysis, although there are numerous other schools of thought on how this technique could be utilized such as the philosophies of Adler, Jung, Sullivan and Klein.

Therapy could be performed in various settings. In the case of individual therapy, it is performed one-on-one and is only between the client and the therapist. Even if a person suffering from anxiety or depression is in favor of therapy in a group setting, undergoing individual therapy could also be essential as it provides a chance to discuss matters in a secure environment. Couples therapy and family therapy involves family to work together as a unit to assist in understanding and dealing with the troubles within the family that contribute to the problems faced by the anxious or depressed member. Usually, the patterns at play in the family have a deep impact on the recovery process of the suffering family and this would be revealed in the course of group therapy. It brings together a number of people who experience the same disorder to enable them to share their experiences and reduce the feelings of isolation usually connected with anxiety and depression.