PSYCHOTHERAPY

Just talking to another person has probably always been used to heal the mind. Since the late nineteenth century an increasing understanding of the inter-relationship between the mind and the body has encouraged the formal adoption of this approach as part of medical practice. Today there are many different ways in which psychotherapists try to heal mental illnesses, including depression, anxiety, phobias and obsessions, simply by talking with their clients.

Some Methods Of Psychotherapy

Analytical therapy seeks to uncover past experiences that have been repressed and subsequently cause psychological symptoms. Once these are recognized, clients are freed from past conflicts and are able to build their lives in the present. Unfortunately, the process can take several years and is generally costly. Existential therapy aims to enable people to come to terms with themselves and life as they are. Again, this is costly and requires a long-term commitment.

Behavioural therapy, which is often combined with cognitive therapy, is based on the belief that behaviour can be both learned and unlearned, and that mental health can be improved when behaviour is changed for the better by learning more appropriate ways to respond to the normal event of life (see below). Transactional analysis aims to increase the awareness in clients that they have a choice in the way they relate to others, and in their attitudes towards themselves.

Sometimes psychotherapy takes place in a group. Group techniques include Gestalt therapy, which aims to release the individual from past unfinished business, and psychodrama, in which past conflicts and emotional struggles are acted out.

Cognitive Therapy
Cognitive therapy is a form of behavioural therapy that can help people whose psychological ills result from a negative distortion of what is happening in their lives. This black-and-white way of thinking often results from depression, but has its roots in past experiences. Some people learned these unhealthy thought patterns in childhood as a way of dealing with problems at home or at school. When these attitudes persist into adult life, or recur under stress, people avoid situations in which they fear failure, and often give up too easily.

Modern cognitive therapy sets out to provide new ways of thinking about and understanding the origins of the negativity. When the behaviour and emotions have been irrational, a more rational approach should be adopted. This often include encouraging the awareness in clients that they have to take responsibility for their own thoughts and actions.

Choosing A Psychotherapist
If you feel that psychotherapy would help you, seek professional guidance about the approach that is within your budget and is suitable for your problem. Getting a referral from your doctor or another health-care professional might be helpful. Most therapists use more than one method of therapy and prospective clients should ask about which methods the therapist prefers and why. Also, prospective clients should talk with the therapist about anticipated duration of therapy and goals for completion.

Counselling
Counselling is usually undertaken in response to a relatively acute problem, such as following grief or shock, or in making a career decision. Informal counselling was once undertaken by the family pastor, priest or for example, within an extended network of friends and family. Such outlets are no longer so easily available and counselling has become more for formalized.

Counsellors are trained to listen and to allow space for their clients to review their problems and to understand them better. Once this is achieved it is possible to work out a way of dealing with them. Co-counselling is a technique in which the counsellor plays a client role, and the client listens and tries to respond. This is intended to help clients learn more about their own problems by looking at them from a different perspective.

Just talking to another person has probably always been used to heal the mind.

Bioenergetics
Bioenergetics is a form of psychological therapy that is based on the belief that we tense our muscles as a way of protecting ourselves against mental pain and thus avoid exposing ourselves to the memory of past painful experiences. Therapists trained to 'read' the way the body moves claim that by observing their clients they can gain an understanding of the underlying causes of both psychological and physical ailments. They believe that helping their clients achieve an awareness of the cause of their problems can bring a release of the pain and the resolution of its causes. This approach can help asthma, migraines, sleep disorders and digestive problems.