One of the most integral parts of mental health and wellbeing is therapy and counselling. We all have a basic notion about these two terms in our minds but let’s talk about them from a technical point of view. Psychotherapy and counselling are used as interchanging. In reality, they have some distinct differences. The main difference is that psychotherapy is more formal. It deals mainly with serious or chronic issues. Whereas counselling is less formal than therapy. It deals with various kinds of day-to-day issues.
Check out our previous blogs if you want to know more about therapy and counselling and the common misconception regarding it.
Various types of therapy deal with mental health and wellbeing differently. All of these therapies are based on different theories. These theories were developed into more practical and application-based modules leading toward a therapy technique. In this article, we will be talking about a few famous therapy techniques.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is one of the most used therapy techniques. The main focus of CBT is to bring about changes in one’s cognition, thought process, perception, etc to change maladaptive behaviors. Aaron Beck,
person-centered Therapy: Person-centred Therapy was developed by Carl Rogers based on his theory in the Humanistic school of psychology. person-centered Therapy focuses on Unconditional Positive Regard. Unconditional Positive regards refer to the process of offering the basic acceptance and support of a person regardless of what the person says or does, especially in the context of client-centered therapy
Psychoanalysis: Psychoanalysis is one of the oldest and most highly used therapy techniques. Psychoanalysis was developed by Freud and was modified by different psychologists throughout history. Psychoanalysis states that people’s unconscious mind affects behavior. So, Psychoanalysts deal with figuring out the deep-rooted issues of their clients
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Solution-Focused Brief Therapy or SFBT is one of the modern therapies that focus on an individual’s strengths than their weakness. For SFBT the therapist focuses more on the solutions than the problems. This therapy encourages focusing on the prior experiences and the way clients dealt with those situations.
Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy: Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy or REBT was developed by Albert Ellis. This is an action directive therapy that deals with identifying irrational beliefs and negative thought patterns which can lead to emotional or behavioral issues. The main principle of REBT is the ABC model, where A stands for Activating events, B stands for Belief and C stands for Consequences. For example, In times of distressing events, the client might have an irrational belief about that event, and the Consequences will be the distressing emotion resulting from that irrational belief. REBT helps the client to reframe their thinking and change their unhelpful self-talk.
Gestalt Therapy: Gestalt therapy is a form of psychotherapy that is centered on increasing a person’s awareness, freedom, and self-direction. It focuses on the present moment rather than past experiences. Gestalt therapy focuses on the ‘what and how’ of the behavior not why that behavior is occurring. They focus on how the past experiences are affecting their present behavior, identify them to understand to develop intervention programs.
Family Therapy: The focus of Family Therapy is that human problems and issues are interpersonal, not intrapersonal. It means to say that any individual with any mental health issue is not the problem, but it is a part of their family and other relations. Family therapy says, “You are not the problem, your situation and your relationships are the cause of the problem. You are just the bearer of these issues.”
The new era in terms of therapeutic approaches to mental health and wellbeing came after the development and popularization of action-based therapies. Instead of the ‘talk’ therapy where the intervention was solely based on the communication between the client and therapist. This new approach dealt mostly with action and active participation of the client.
Expressive Arts Therapy: Expressive Arts Therapy is one of the most famous contemporary approaches to mental health and wellbeing. The main goal of Expressive Arts Therapy is to provide a platform to explore their responses, reactions, and insights through various art techniques. This is an integrative multimodal approach through which therapists help their clients to understand themselves and their reactions to their issues. Expressive Arts Therapy uses writing, poetry, movement, sand tray, painting, music, drama, etc. to help people achieve personal growth.
Movement Therapy, Drama Therapy, Music Therapy, Arts Therapy, etc. are different types of therapeutic approaches that started growing as separate branches from Expressive Therapies.
Psychodrama: Psychodrama is a type of action-based group therapy that allows clients to explore their problems through role-playing and other dramatic devices to gain behavioral skills and insight. In Psychodrama, the audience also takes part where they feel cathartic by watching others. Psychodrama is not a performance it is a spontaneous portrayal of the client’s issues, debates, and perplexities. The therapist or the expert of the Psychodrama group gives structure to the group but acts only as a facilitator or audience. It is a very open and control-free therapy approach.
Feminist Therapy: As the name suggests Feminist Therapy deals with clients suffering from biases, discrimination, violence and aggression, and oppression, based on their gender and sex. This therapy views the political and personal as being intertwined and views social equity as essential to mental health. Feminist therapy deals with the traditional power dynamics where the client is treated as an expert on their own experiences. Contrary to popular belief Feminist therapy is not only about cisgender women, it includes all and every part of the community in their ranks.
These are only a few of the many therapeutic options available in the field of mental health. This article holds just the bare minimum of these therapies. They are vast and special in their ways. This is not enough to give an overview of these therapies. But we hope it gives you a window to consider one of these therapies in terms of your mental health. There are several options available, and we need to prioritize our mental health the same way we do our physical health.
