Therapy comes in many forms, and its history seems so recent. Something like therapy had been used earlier, but it only became more mainstream during the late 1800s. Before then, it was a simple talk with a good friend or acquaintance. Now, therapy is the talk of the town that involves people from all walks of life. If you need someone to talk with, they even have help lines you can go to over the phone. There is an entire market revolved around mental illness and therapy, but it requires the right attention. If you want to get some help, you should know exactly what kind of therapy you need or will receive. These are the 15 different kinds of therapy.
15 Different Kinds of Therapy
1. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a kind of therapy and psycho-social intervention that aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions; they are primarily depression and anxiety disorders. CBT focuses on challenging and changing cognitive distortions (thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes) and behaviors. The goal is to improve emotional regulation and the development of personal coping strategies that target solving current problems.
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CBT is a “problem-focused” and “action-oriented” form of therapy, meaning it is used to treat specific problems related to a diagnosed mental disorder. The therapist’s role is to assist the client in finding and practicing effective strategies to address the identified goals and alleviate symptoms of the disorder. CBT is based on the belief that thought distortions and maladaptive behaviors play a massive role. They do so in the development and maintenance of many psychological disorders, and that symptoms and associated distress can be reduced by teaching new information-processing skills and coping mechanisms.
2. Exposure Response Therapy
Exposure therapy is a technique in behavior therapy to treat anxiety disorders. This kind of therapy involves exposing the target patient to the anxiety source or its context without the intention to cause any danger. Doing so is thought to help them overcome their anxiety or distress. The effectiveness of this therapy is very much solid, as it always helps a person overcome their fears. The problem stems from the person being unable to go through with it. An example would be having a snake handler control a harmless snake touch a person who fears snakes. A person will slowly or even immediately lose a fear they once had due to the exposure. This often eliminates any irrational fears a person had to begin with.
15 Different Kinds of Therapy
3. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based psychotherapy that began with efforts to treat personality disorders, and interpersonal conflicts. There is evidence that DBT can be useful in treating mood disorders, suicidal ideation, and for change in behavioral patterns such as self-harm and substance use. DBT evolved into a process in which the therapist and client work with acceptance and change-oriented strategies, and ultimately balance and synthesize them, in a manner comparable to the philosophical dialectical process of hypothesis and antithesis, followed by synthesis.
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This approach was developed by Marsha M. Linehan, a psychology researcher at the University of Washington. She did this to help people increase their emotional and cognitive regulation by learning about the triggers that lead to reactive states. It also helps in assessing which coping skills to apply in the sequence of events, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to help avoid undesired reactions. It is particularly helpful to those with BPD because of how it can treat a highly affective state. Since Linehan had borderline personality disorder, it helped her understand this kind of therapy even more.
4. Psychodynamic Therapy
Psychodynamic therapy is a form of depth psychology formed in the late 1800s by Ernst Wilhelm von Brucke. The primary focus of this therapy is to reveal the unconscious content of a client’s psyche in an effort to alleviate psychic tension. This tension is the inner conflict within the mind that was created in a situation of extreme stress or emotional hardship, often in the state of distress. It evolved from and largely replaced psychoanalysis in the mid-20th century. The origins of this therapy are related to thermodynamics and the idea that all living things have energy systems.
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Psychodynamic psychotherapy relies on the interpersonal relationship between client and therapist more than other forms of depth psychology. They must have a strong relationship build heavily on trust. In terms of approach, this form of therapy uses psychoanalysis adapted to a less intensive style of working. This kind of therapy usually occurs at a frequency of once or twice per week, often the same frequency as many other therapies. It is a focus that has been used in individual psychotherapy, group psychotherapy, family therapy. In psychiatry, it is has been used for adjustment disorders, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but more often for personality-related disorders.
15 Different Kinds of Therapy
5. Psychoanalytic Therapy
Psychoanalytic therapy is a kind of therapy that deals in part with the unconscious mind that forms a method of treatment for mental disorders. The discipline was established in the early 1890s by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. He developed the practice from his theoretical model of personality organization and development — psychoanalytic theory. The clinical effectiveness of psychoanalytic therapy is often contested, as it relies on little founded evidence.
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Freud’s work stems partly from the clinical work of Josef Breuer and others. Psychoanalysis was later developed in different directions. It was changed mostly by students of Freud, such as Alfred Adler and his collaborator, Carl Gustav Jung, as well as by neo-Freudian thinkers. The patient expresses their thoughts, including free associations, fantasies, and dreams. From here, the analyst infers the unconscious conflicts causing the patient’s symptoms and character problems. Through the analysis of these conflicts, which includes interpreting the transference and countertransference (the analyst’s feelings for the patient), the analyst confronts the patient’s pathological defenses to help the patient gain insight.
6. Integrative Therapy
Integrative therapy is a kind of therapy that helps with the psychotherapeutic process of integrating the personality. This mean that it is uniting the affective, cognitive, behavioral, and physiological systems within a person. In turn, much of this therapy helps with eliminating cognitive dissonance and internal conflict. Integration works well with people struggling with depression, anxiety, and personality disorders.
15 Different Kinds of Therapy
7. Humanistic Therapy
Humanistic therapy helps the client gain the belief that all people are inherently good. It adopts a holistic approach to human existence and pays special attention to such phenomena as creativity, free will, and positive human potential. Humanistic therapy encourages viewing ourselves as a “whole person” greater than the sum of our parts. It also encourages self exploration rather than the study of behavior in other people. Humanistic psychology acknowledges spiritual aspiration as an integral part of the psyche. It is linked to the emerging field of transpersonal psychology.
8. Gestalt Therapy
Gestalt therapy is a form of psychotherapy that emphasizes personal responsibility. It also focuses on the individual’s experience in the present moment and the therapist-client relationship. There is an emphasis on the environmental and social contexts of a person’s life and the self-regulating adjustments people make as a result of their overall situation. It was developed by Fritz Perls, Laura Perls, and Paul Goodman in the 1940s and 1950s.
15 Different Kinds of Therapy
9. Transactional Analysis Therapy
Transactional analysis (TA) is a psychoanalytic theory and method of therapy wherein social interactions (or “transactions”) are analyzed to determine the ego state of the communicator (whether parent-like, childlike, or adult-like) as a basis for understanding behavior. In transactional analysis, the communicator is taught to alter the ego state as a way to solve emotional problems. The method deviates from Freudian psychoanalysis which focuses on increasing awareness of the contents of subconsciously held ideas. Eric Berne developed the concept and paradigm of transactional analysis in the late 1950s.
10. Existential Therapy
Existential psychotherapy is a form of psychotherapy based on the model of human nature and experience; it was developed by the existential tradition of European philosophy. It focuses on concepts that are universally applicable to human existence including death, freedom, responsibility, and the meaning of life. Instead of regarding human experiences such as anxiety, alienation, and depression as implying the presence of mental illness, existential psychotherapy sees these experiences as natural stages in a normal process of human development and maturation. In facilitating this process of development and maturation, existential psychotherapy involves a philosophical exploration of an individual’s experiences stressing the individual’s freedom and responsibility to facilitate a higher degree of meaning and well-being in their life.
15 Different Kinds of Therapy
11. Family Systems Therapy
Family therapy is a branch of psychology that works with families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of interaction between family members. The different schools of family therapy have in common many core beliefs. One of them is that regardless of the origin of the problem, and regardless of whether the clients consider it an “individual” or “family” issue, involving families in solutions often benefits clients.
12. Person-Centered Therapy
Person-centered therapy is a form of psychotherapy developed by psychologist Carl Rogers beginning in the 1940s and extending into the 1980s. This kind of therapy seeks to facilitate a client’s self-actualizing tendency, which is an inbuilt proclivity toward growth and fulfillment. This happens via acceptance, therapist congruence (genuineness), and empathic understanding.
15 Different Kinds of Therapy
13. Interpersonal Therapy
Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) is a brief, attachment-focused psychotherapy that centers on resolving interpersonal problems and symptomatic recovery. It is an empirically supported treatment (EST) that follows a highly structured and time-limited approach; it is intended to be completed within 12-16 weeks. IPT is based on the principle that relationships and life events impact mood and that the reverse is also true. It was developed by Gerald Klerman and Myrna Weissman for major depression in the 1970s. Since then, it has been adapted for other mental disorders. IPT is an empirically validated intervention for depressive and personality disorders.
14. Vegetotherapy
Vegetotherapy is a form of Reichian psychotherapy that involves the physical manifestations of emotions. It is a kind of body therapy that is supposed to apply the basic principles of somatic psychology. The practice of vegetotherapy involves the analyst enabling the patient to physically simulate the bodily effects of strong emotions. In this technique, the patient is asked to remove his or her outer clothing. They are then obstructed to lie down on a sheet-covered bed in the doctor’s office and breathe deeply and rhythmically. The doctor would then proceed to tickle or prod points of tension on the body. This would then cause stimulation and a cathartic reactions from the patient.
15 Different Kinds of Therapy
15. Primal Therapy
Primal therapy is a trauma-based psychotherapy created by Arthur Janov. He argues that neurosis and psychosis is caused by the repressed pain of childhood trauma. Janov argues that repressed pain can be sequentially brought to conscious awareness for resolution. This can happen through re-experiencing specific incidents and fully expressing the resulting pain during therapy.
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In therapy, the patient recalls and reenacts a particularly disturbing past experience usually occurring early in life. The patient then expresses normally repressed anger or frustration especially through spontaneous and unrestrained screams, hysteria, or violence. Primal therapy was developed as a means of eliciting the repressed pain not seen in typical talk therapy.
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