Varieties of Psychotherapy And Their Applications

In today’s world there are many and different types of psychotherapy, each one varying in its approach to patients and it’s common and founding hypothesis and theories. And even though there is still no complete understanding of how the human brain functions, most of the therapeutic approaches are based on successful methods and provide a way to treat the problems , having as little knowledge as we have. A person must understand , however, that even though most of the therapies are efficient in their own field, they may not be as applicable in others, and that is worth being mentioned and remembered.
Let us begin with two separate schools of psychotherapy (or as we say in Denmark - lære mere om psykoterapi )which have later taken a common path. Cognitive therapy, as a type of therapy, bases itself on the notion that any and all troubles and mental illnesses are based on troubled and wrong perception of the world around us. Or said in other words, the way we perceive information to serve the purposes of our minds makes it difficult for us to see reality normally ,and there are always conflicts between what we think we perceive and what actually is.
Behavioral therapy works in a somewhat similar way, by stating that almost every mental problem is a consequence of repetitive incorporation into a person’s behavioral pattern. Said otherwise – we do bad things and we suffer from mental problems because of the constant repetition of certain behavioral models.
Both theories unified create cognitive behavioral therapy , which is one of the central modalities in psychology nowadays. What’s interesting about it, compared to the other very common and popular type of therapy which we will mention later in the article , is that cognitive behavioral therapy bases itself on the idea that the past is not to be examined in too much detail, but rather that there should be some defined goals for treating the current issues of the patient for the future.
To the exact opposite of what we said in the last sentence about cognitive behavioral therapy, in psychodynamic and psychoanalytic therapy, the approach taken is exactly the opposite – the therapist looks for events in the patient’s past that have lead him to be experiencing his current symptoms. Psychodynamic therapies are quite a lot slower than cognitive behavioral therapies, but may prove to be more useful in the even that you have a non-specific problem that requires more identification. To simplify the last sentence – if you have a problem with an addiction , it’s fairly easy to determine what your problem is. But if you can’t sleep at night and you don’t have an idea why, that may not be as easily treatable with cognitive behavioral therapy and may call for psychodynamic therapy.
Now that you already know the basic “flavors” of psychology , it’s safe to assume that once you visit your therapist you’ll know just what to ask and just how to determine whether they’re the correct person who can guide you through the correct therapy.