| About Psychotherapy |
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 the people we are close to. The treatment involves discussing past experiences and how these may have led to our present predicament. It also helps us to see how these affect our life now and how we may express these feelings to the therapist. The understanding gained frees the person to make choices about what happens in the future. This may involve quite brief therapy for specific difficulties, but where problems are long standing, treatment may mean attending regular sessions over many months. Although traditionally this involved the client lying on a couch, it is more usual today for client and therapist to sit in chairs while they talk. Treatment is often relatively short but, for people with more deep-seated problems, longer-terms treatment may be necessary.
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. This approach 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.
Like behavioural
psychotherapy it aims at changing thinking patterns directly, but like
psychodynamic psychotherapy it encourages discussion of how we think and helps
us to get rid of destructive ways of thinking. It does not focus very much on
the past - more on the present and future and has achieved particular success in
the treatment of certain types of
depression.
Peoples problems will often not be theirs alone, but are often the result of relationship problems in a marriage, partnership or family. By focusing very clearly on the relationships involved and by involving all the people concerned, family and marital family therapy seek to help those relationships to work better.
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 marital work to individual treatment.
Psychotherapy usually
involves regular meetings at the same time, same place every week or two weeks.
In most cases the length of the treatment will be agreed between the client(s)
and the therapist(s) within a month or so of starting. What happens during a
session is usually considered confidential to the people in that session. In
individual psychotherapy one patient and one therapist talk together in a quiet
room, usually for 50 minutes or so. In group therapy several people with similar
sorts of problems meet
regularly with a therapist or therapists. These sessions may be longer than in
individual psychotherapy. Group therapy may appear less intimate, but it is not
a cheap or second-rate treatment - in fact it is the best treatment for some
problems. The experience of discovering one is not alone and of being able to
help other people is powerfully encouraging and is often the first step towards
getting better. In marital therapy, a therapist or pair of therapist will meet
with a married
or committed couple so that they can work on their problems jointly. In family
therapy the whole family will be involved usually talking over their
difficulties with a pair of therapists.
A psychotherapist may be a psychiatrist, psychologist or other mental health professional who has had further specialist training in psychotherapy. Increasingly there are a number of psychotherapists who do not have a background as psychiatrists, psychologists or social workers, but who have an in-depth training in psychotherapy.
You should ask your GP who will be able to refer you to a qualified psychotherapist in your area. It is important that a psychotherapist has a recognised qualification and your GP should ensure that this is the case before making a referral. You should not be afraid to "shop around" for someone who suits your needs.
http://www.city.ac.uk/healthservice/occupational/counselling/psychotherapy.html