Robert Hudson: Integrative Psychotherapy, Counselling, Coaching & Consultancy
Robert Hudson: Integrative Psychotherapy, Counselling, Coaching & Consultancy
There are many different types of psychotherapy. They are all ways of helping people to overcome stress, emotional problems, relationship problems or troublesome habits. What they have in common is that they are all treatments based on talking to another person and sometimes doing things together. They are the "talking treatments". The person carrying out the treatment is usually called a therapist, the person being seen is usually referred to as the client.
This focuses on the feelings we have about other people, especially our family and those we are close to. Treatment involves discussing past experiences and how these may have led to our present situation and also how these past experiences may be affecting our life now. The understanding gained frees the person to make choices about what happens in the future.
Psychodynamic psychotherapy may involve quite brief therapy for specific difficulties. If your problems are long-standing, treatment may mean attending regular sessions over many months.
This tries to change patterns of behaviour more directly. Patients can be helped to overcome fears by spending more and more time in the situation they fear, or by learning ways of reducing their anxiety. They may be given 'homework' exercises, and asked to keep diaries or to practice new skills between sessions.
Behavioural psychotherapy is particularly effective for anxiety, panic, phobias, obsessive-compulsive problems and various kinds of social or sexual difficulty. Relief from symptoms often occurs quite quickly.
These are all very different sorts of treatment, but they all help us to understand better how we work, which can help us to make changes in our lives. Psychotherapists may use a combination of techniques to suit the individual, and people may progress from say individual to group therapy, or couple work to individual treatment.