Psychotherapy

Therapy may be conducted in an individual, family, couple, or group setting, and can help both children and adults. Sessions are typically held once a week for about 30 to 50. Both patient and therapist need to be actively involved in psychotherapy. The trust and relationship between a person and his/her therapist is essential to working together effectively and benefiting from psychotherapy.

Psychotherapy can be short-term (a few sessions), dealing with immediate issues, or long-term (months or years), dealing with longstanding and complex issues. The goals of treatment and arrangements for how often and how long to meet are planned jointly by the patient and therapist.

Types of Psychotherapy

We use several types of therapy. The choice of therapy type depends on the patient’s particular illness and circumstances and his/her preference. Therapists may combine elements from different approaches to best meet the needs of the person receiving treatment.

Behaviour therapy is a broad term referring to clinical psychotherapy that uses techniques derived from behaviourism. Those who practice behaviour therapy tends to look at specific, learned behaviours and how the environment influences those behaviours. This could be used to manage any problem behaviours or to help learn any adaptive behaviours.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a type of psychotherapy that can help you manage your problems by changing the way you think and behave. CBT is based on the concept that your thoughts, feelings, physical sensations and actions are interconnected, and that negative thoughts and feelings can trap you in a vicious cycle. CBT aims to help you deal with overwhelming problems in a more positive way by breaking them down into smaller parts. You’re shown how to change these negative patterns to improve the way you feel.CBT can be helpful in treating a variety of disorders, including depression, anxiety, trauma related disorders, and eating disorders. For example, CBT can help a person with depression recognize and change negative thought patterns or behaviours that are contributing to the depression.

Psychodynamic therapy is based on the idea that behaviour and mental well-being are influenced by childhood experiences and inappropriate repetitive thoughts or feelings that are unconscious (outside of the person’s awareness). A person works with the therapist to improve self-awareness and to change old patterns so he/she can more fully take charge of his/her life.

Metacognitive therapy is a psychotherapy focused on modifying metacognitive beliefs that perpetuate states of worry, rumination, and fixation. It is supported by scientific evidence from a large number of studies. The goals of MCT are first to discover what patients believe about their own thoughts and about how their mind works (called metacognitive beliefs), then to show the patient how these beliefs lead to unhelpful responses to thoughts that serve to unintentionally prolong or worsen symptoms, and finally to provide alternative ways of responding to thoughts in order to allow a reduction of symptoms. In clinical practice, MCT is most commonly used for treating anxiety disorders such as social anxiety disorder, generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), health anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder(OCD) and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as well as depression – though the model was designed to be transdiagnostic (meaning it focuses on common psychological factors thought to maintain all psychological disorders

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) gets its name from one of its core messages: accept what is out of your personal control, and commit to action that improves and enriches your life. The aim of ACT is to maximize human potential for a rich, full, and meaningful life. ACT (which is pronounced as the word ‘act’, not as the initials) does this by:

a) Teaching you psychological skills to deal with your painful thoughts and feelings effectively – in such a way that they have much less impact and influence over you (these are known as mindfulness skills).

b) Helping you to clarify what is truly important and meaningful to you – i.e. your values – then use that knowledge to guide, inspire and motivate you to change your life for the better.

Solution Focused Brief Psychotherapy (SFBT) The SFBT approach assumes that all clients have some knowledge of what would make their life better, even though they may need some (at times, considerable) help describing the details of their better life and that everyone who seeks help already possesses at least the minimal skills necessary to create solutions. All therapy is a form of specialized conversations. With SFBT, the conversation is directed toward developing and achieving the client’s vision of solutions. The following techniques and questions help clarify those solutions and the means of achieving them: looking for previous solutions, looking for exceptions, present and future focused questions, compliments, Miracle questions, inviting the client to do more of what is working etc.

Supportive therapy uses guidance and encouragement to help patients develop their own resources. It helps build self-esteem, reduce anxiety, strengthen coping mechanisms, and improve social and community functioning. Supportive psychotherapy helps patients deal with issues related to their mental health conditions which in turn affect the rest of their lives.