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Types of Therapy
Counsellors and Psychotherapists work in a variety of therapeutic approaches with their clients. These therapies range from the traditional psychoanalytic techniques, originally practised by Sigmund Freud to the methods developed over the years into various forms by professionals all over the world.
The following is a list of commonly used therapy approaches with descriptions of their meanings to help you identify the best approach for your needs.
12-Step
A twelve-step program is a fellowship which aims at the recovery of its members from the consequences of an addiction a compulsion, or another harmful influence on their lives, with the help of the faith-based Twelve Steps. Also the specific program of recovery that is applied within such a fellowship, is called a twelve-step program. The fellowship, a bond of loosely organised, autonomous groups, functions on the basis of principles, formulated in the Twelve Traditions. Synonyms are anonymous program and A-program; the original twelve-step program is Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A), which was started in the US. Today there are meetings and fellowships all over the world. The 12-Step philosophy is utilised as a basis for many treatment programmes around the world. Individuals are encouraged to use the 12-Step principles in their recovery. Research has shown that the quality of recovery from all addictive and mental health disorders is enhanced by the many components of the 12-Step Programmes, such as mutual support, honesty, accountability, acceptance, and spirituality.
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Adlerian Therapy
Adlerian Therapy is a growth model. It stresses a positive view of human nature and the fact that we are in control of our own fate and not a victim to it. As individuals we are motivated by our setting of goals, how we deal with the tasks we face in life, and our social interest. The therapist will gather as much family history as they can. They will use this data to help set goals for the client and to get an idea of the clients' past performance. This will help make certain the goal is not to low or high, and that the client has the means to reach it. The goal of Adlerian Therapy is to challenge and encourage the clients' premises and goals and to encourage goals that are useful socially and which will help the client feel equal. The therapist may also assign homework, set up contracts between them and the client, and will offer support and suggestions on how the client can reach their goals.
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Art Therapy
In art therapy, the client uses clay, paint, and other art medium to create images that explore their feelings, dreams, memories or ideas. People take art therapy for a variety of reasons. For example, individuals suffering with depression, facing loss, coping with trauma, dealing with addiction, recovering from sexual abuse, or seeking means to overcome anxiety have often found relief, courage, and strengthening insight through art therapy. Creativity can provide a means of expression for that which has no words, or is not yet fully understood. Using the client's art as an interpretive reference point, the art therapist helps the client further explore their feelings, experiences, and perceptions and claim renewed clarity and meaning in their life.
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Behavioural Therapy
This therapy is based on the belief that behaviour is learnt in response to past experience and can be unlearnt, or reconditioned, without analysing the past to find the reason for the behaviour. . The therapist teaches the client to replace undesirable responses (groundless fears, for example) in their day-to-day living. It works well for compulsive and obsessive behaviour, fears, phobias and addictions. Behavioural therapies use learning principles to eliminate or reduce unwanted reactions to external situations, one's thoughts and feelings, and bodily sensations or functions. Rather than dealing with unconscious conflicts, this therapeutic approach deals with events of which people are aware or can readily become aware.
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Brief Therapy
This uses the cognitive behavioural approach with a small, planned number of sessions and possibly a single follow-up session after some time has elapsed.
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Christian Philosophy
These are faith-based services in which acceptance of God plays some part in treatment. In some Christian services, faith plays a major part in the programme of care. In others, staff are Christian but residents are not required to share their faith.
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Cognitive Analytical Therapy
This approach draws on psychoanalytic as well as cognitive techniques. A structured and focused framework is used to encourage clients to understand the origins of their attitudes and beliefs, and the effect they have on present feelings and behaviour in order that change may occur. Treatment may take several months or even longer. Negative ways of thinking are explored and treatment is structured and directive involving diary keeping, progress charts, etc.
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Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
CBT is a form of psychotherapy that emphasises the important role of thinking in how we feel and what we do. A Cognitive Behavioural therapist teaches that when our brains are healthy, it is our thinking that causes us to feel and act the way we do. Therefore, if we are experiencing unwanted feelings and behaviours, it is important to identify the thinking behind those feelings/behaviours and to learn how to replace this thinking with thoughts that lead to more desirable reactions. There are several approaches to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, including Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, Rational Behaviour Therapy, Rational Living Therapy, Cognitive Therapy, and Dialectic Behaviour Therapy.
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Cognitive Therapy
Uses the power of the mind to influence behaviour. The Theory is based on addressing that experiences can adversely affect self-perception and condition attitude, emotions and ability to deal with certain situations. The concept works by helping the client to identify, question and change negative thought patterns, thus altering habitual responses and behaviour. It can help pessimistic or depressed people to view things from a more optimistic perspective.
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Eclectic Counselling
Eclectic counsellors will select what is most relevant and suitable to individual clients from a range of theories, methods and practices. Justification is based on the theory that there is no proof that any one theoretical approach works better than all others for a specific problem.
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Eclectic Integrated
These are programmes which do not adhere to any one philosophy of care but which use a range of different methods and interventions according to the needs of individual residents.
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EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing integrates elements of many effective psychotherapies in structured protocols that are designed to maximise treatment effects. These include psychodynamic, cognitive behavioural, interpersonal, experiential, and body centred therapies. EMDR is an information processing therapy and uses an eight-phase approach. During EMDR the client attends to past and present experiences in brief sequential doses while simultaneously focusing on an external stimulus.
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Existential Counselling
Existentialists believe that life has no essential (given) meaning: any meaning has to be found or created. Existential counselling involves making sense of life through a personal world view and includes a willingness to face one's life and life problems.
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Gestalt Therapy
Gestalt therapy takes approaches from a wide variety of psychological and philosophical disciplines, integrating them into a therapeutic approach based on the idea of a complete organism (mind and body as an integrated whole). The objective of this therapy is to enable a person to become creatively alive and to be free from the inhibitions to this vitality which may diminish optimum satisfaction, fulfillment, and growth.
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Humanistic Psychotherapy
This embraces techniques coming from the 'personal growth movement' and encourages individuals to explore their feelings and take responsibility for their thoughts and actions. Emphasis is on self-development and achieving highest potential rather than dysfunctional behaviour. 'Client-centred' or 'non-directive' approach is often used and the therapy can be described as 'holistic'. The client's creative instincts may be used to explore and resolve personal issues.
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Integrative Counselling
This is when a combination of therapeutic models are used together in a converging manner rather than separately.
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Intervention
People sometimes engage in self-destructive behaviour, rejecting any assistance others may offer. Intervention, when done correctly, is extremely effective in helping these people accept help. Long used for alcohol and drug addiction, intervention is now also used for compulsive gambling, internet or computer addiction, eating disorders, and other self-destructive behaviours.
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Jungian Therapy
Based on psychoanalytic orientation which stresses the role of spirituality and spiritual needs in dealing with emotional disorders. Based on the work of psychoanalyst Carl Jung. Jung classified personality into introverts and extroverts and developed a theory of the unconscious mind that included both the personal and the collective.
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Minnesota Model
The Minnesota Model approach is typically characterised by a thorough and ongoing assessment of all aspects of the client and of multi-model therapeutic approaches. It may include group and individual therapy, family education and support, and other methods. A multidisciplinary team of professionals (e.g., counsellors, psychologists, nurses) plan and assist in the treatment process for each client. Each member of the team meets individually with the client to conduct an interview, review the client's test results, and review the questionnaire that the client completes. After the client is seen by each team member, the team meets without the client to discuss the findings and form a treatment plan that includes individualised goals and objectives. The assumption is that abstinence is the prerequisite. Treatment provides tools and a context for the client to learn new ways of living without alcohol and other drugs. This type of treatment can be employed on an inpatient or outpatient basis. The philosophy of the Minnesota Model is based on Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).
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Neuro-linguistic Programming
The basic premise of NLP is that the words we use reflect an inner, subconscious perception of our problems. If these words and perceptions are inaccurate, as long as we continue to use them and to think of them, the underlying problem will persist. In other words, our attitudes are, in a sense, a self-fulfilling prophecy. NLP is purposeful individuals are encourage to understand that we have all the resources we need or we can create them.
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Person Centred Counselling
Person centred therapy works on the assumption that people are capable of working out their own solutions once they have gained recognition of their own potential to do so. That no matter how defeated a person seems to be they are always fighting back, and have the potential for success. The founder of person centred counselling was Carl Rogers. The person centred approach is the theory of concept of self. The Self is an organised, consistent set of perceptions and belief about oneself. It includes my awareness of 'what I am' 'what I can do' and influences both my perception of the world and my behaviour. This is also known as an actualisation theory.
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Play Therapy
This is a form of psychotherapy for children that uses play situations for diagnosis or treatment.
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Primal Therapy
Primal Therapy is based on the theory that suppressing traumas from birth or infancy can reappear later on in life as neuroses. In therapy the client is taken back to the 'primal scene' where trauma can be re-experienced as an emotional cleansing.
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Psychoanalysis
This is based on the work of Sigmund Freud, who believed that the unacceptable thoughts of early childhood are banished to the unconscious mind but continue to influence thoughts, emotions and behaviour. "Repressed" feelings can surface later as conflicts, depression, etc or through dreams or creative activities. The analyst seeks to interpret and make acceptable to the client's conscious mind, troublesome feelings and relationships from the past. "Transference" onto the analyst, of feelings about figures in the client's life, is encouraged. This type of therapy is often used by clients suffering high levels of distress and can be a lengthy and intensive process.
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Psychodynamic psychotherapy
This approach focuses on the importance of the unconscious mind and past experience in determining current behaviour. The client is encouraged to talk about childhood relationships with parents and other significant people and the therapist focuses on the client/therapist relationship and in particular on the transference. Transference is when the client projects onto the therapist feelings experienced in previous significant relationships. The psychodynamic approach is derived from Psychoanalysis but usually provides a quicker solution to emotional problems.
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Psychosynthesis
Psychosynthesis is an approach to human development fostered by Roberto Assagioli (1888-1974) beginning around 1910 and continuing to the present day. It is both a theory and practice where the focus is to achieve a synthesis, a coming together, of the various parts of an individual's personality into a more cohesive self. That person can then function in a way that is more life-affirming and authentic. Another major aspect of psychosynthesis is its affirmation of the spiritual dimension of the person, i.e. the "higher" or "transpersonal" self. The higher self is seen as a source of wisdom, inspiration, unconditional love, and the will to meaning in our lives. Psychosynthesis is founded on the basic premise that we participate in an orderly universe structured to facilitate the evolution of consciousness. A corollary is that each person's life has purpose and meaning within this broader context and that it is possible for the individual to discover this.
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Re-birthing
Emotional or physical traumas during birth are said to create feelings of separation or fear in later life. In this approach breathing techniques are used to release tension whilst the client re-experiences traumatic emotions. A skilled practitioner is essential.
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Relapse Prevention
Relapse Prevention Therapy (RPT) was originally designed as a maintenance program for use following the treatment of addictive behaviours although it is also used as a stand-alone treatment programme. In the most general sense, RPT is a behavioural self control program designed to teach individuals who are trying to maintain changes in their behaviour how to anticipate and cope with the problem of relapse. Like other cognitive-behavioural therapies, RPT combines behavioural and cognitive interventions in an overall approach that emphasises self-management and rejects labelling clients with traits like "alcoholic" or "drug addict."
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Solution-focused Brief Therapy
Positive change rather than dwelling on past problems and experiences is used in this approach. Clients are encouraged to identify and focus positively on what they do well and to set goals and work out how to achieve them. As little as 3 or 4 sessions may be beneficial.
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Spirituality Counselling
Spirituality is, in a narrow sense, a concern with matters of the spirit. The spiritual, concerning as it does eternal verities regarding Man's ultimate nature, is often contrasted with the temporal or the worldly. The central defining characteristic of spirituality is a sense of connection to a much greater whole which includes an emotional experience of religious awe and reverence. As with some forms of religion, the emphasis of spirituality is often on personal experience. It may be an expression for life perceived as higher, more complex or more integrated with one's worldview, as contrasted with the merely sensual. An important distinction needs to be made between spirituality in religion and spirituality as opposed to religion. In recent years, spirituality in religion often carries connotations of the believer's faith being more personal, less dogmatic, more open to new ideas and myriad influences, and more pluralistic than the faiths of established religions. It also can connote the nature of a believer's personal relationship or "connection" with their god or belief system, as opposed to the general relationship with the Deity understood to be shared by all members of that faith. Those who speak of spirituality as opposed to religion generally believe that there are many "spiritual paths" and that there is no objective truth about which is the best path to follow. Rather, adherents of this definition of the term emphasize the importance of finding one's own path to whatever-god-there-is, rather than following what others say works. The best way to describe this view is: the path which makes the most sense is the correct one (for oneself). Many adherents of orthodox religions who consider spirituality to be an aspect of their religious experience are more likely to contrast spirituality with secular "worldliness" than with the ritual expression of their religion.
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Systemic Therapies
These therapies have, as their aim, a change in the transactional pattern of members. It can be used as the generic term for family therapy and marital therapy.
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Therapeutic Community
The therapeutic community (TC) for the treatment of drug abuse and addiction has existed for about 40 years. In general, TCs are drug-free residential settings that use a hierarchical model with treatment stages that reflect increased levels of personal and social responsibility. Peer influence, mediated through a variety of group processes, is used to help individuals learn and assimilate social norms and develop more effective social skills. TCs differ from other treatment approaches principally in their use of the community, comprising treatment staff and those in recovery, as key agents of change. This approach is often referred to as "community as method." TC members interact in structured and unstructured ways to influence attitudes, perceptions, and behaviours associated with drug use.
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Transactional Analysis
Transactional analysis is based on the belief that everyone has a child, adult and parent self within themselves and, within each social interaction, one self predominates. By recognising these roles, a client can choose which one to adopt and so change behaviour. This form of therapy has produced the term "inner child", used to describe unfulfilled needs from childhood.
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Transpersonal Therapy
This describes any form of counselling or therapy with the emphasis on spirituality, human potential or heightened consciousness. It includes the approach of psychosynthesis.
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