What Is Psychotherapy?
It is a treatment modality that uses words as a medicine; it is termed counseling in layman's language. A treatment method that focuses on changing the way a person thinking and acts. It is used as an adjuvant to medicinal treatments in many psychological disorders where a trained person modifies an individual's thought process and behavioral approach towards incidences and life.
Who Is a Psychotherapist?
A trained professional who uses verbal therapy for the treatment of mental and psychological disorders to help people lead satisfactory and happier life. Depending on the degree and specialty, a psychotherapist can be a psychiatrist, psychologist, counselor, or social worker, and all these people deal with similar kinds of problems with quite some differences. Though these individuals have specialization and permission to deal with or help people with mental health issues, not all of them are permitted to prescribe medications or antipsychotic drugs. The patient's reference to the concerned specialist depends on the chronicity and severity of the disorder.
Who Needs Psychotherapy?
Mental health has been a very crucial topic of discussion for the past few years as the stress that has been developing due to work culture and lifestyle modifications have been reported to increase the number of patients with stress and anxiety disorders. Patients diagnosed with mental disorders like bipolar disorder, eating disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder seek help at various stages of these disorders to deal with the problems and, heal mentally and lead a healthy life. In some individuals, psychotherapy also helps in the rehabilitation phase, as any physical disease weakens a person mentally. A completely healthy-looking individual can also be a victim of anxiety or struggle with personal, family, and social relationships and require therapeutic help to deal with it, and this is where psychotherapy plays an important role.
Psychotherapy has also helped people deal with the following conditions:
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pain or serious illnesses.
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Divorce and breakups.
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Grief or loss.
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Low self-esteem.
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Relationship problems.
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Stress.
What Are the Different Types of Psychotherapy?
1. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy(CBT):
It mainly focuses on changing an individual's approach and thought process in certain circumstances that help them lead a healthy and happy life. Many pieces of research have proved it effective in most individuals with mental health issues like anxiety and depression. It is considered helpful in any case where a person needs to treat unhealthy or toxic thoughts that hinder the way to succeed in life.
CBT mainly includes the following steps during the therapy:
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Assessment
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Personal education
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Goal setting
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Practise of strategies
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Homework.
CBT is one of the best treatment modalities for people looking forward to replacing negative thoughts with a healthy thinking process, but not everyone is a perfect fit for the therapy. CBT is to be avoided in patients with brain injuries or trauma who cannot have a rational thought process. It is also not recommended in cases where an individual is too lazy to write down the thoughts, as it mainly focuses on thought process alteration. CBT, though termed a short-term therapy, may take months to years to get satisfactory results hence can be disappointing to people who expect quick results. Dialectical behavior therapy is also a type of CBT that helps you in making stronger and better relationships through a change of thoughts.
2. Psychodynamic Therapy:This mainly is a verbal therapy, a person is where mainly healing is through a process of conversation to better understand the thought process in detail. Psychodynamic therapy mainly focuses on understanding the thought process and learning to alter it to cope with difficult life situations in a better manner. It mainly focuses on enhancing the understanding of unconscious thoughts and developing new insights to resolve conflicts.
3. Interpersonal Psychotherapy: helps a person deal with personal relationship problems by undergoing several counseling sessions that help you understand the way you deal with friends, family, spouse, colleagues, etc.
What Are the Steps of Psychotherapy?
- Choose your therapist.
- Schedule an appointment.
- Know the cost.
- Know the treatment plan and duration of treatment.
- Know the span and frequency of every appointment.
- Know the things or activities during the treatment.
An individual needs to be comfortable with the therapist as during the chores of treatment, you need to pour your heart out and if you don't like or trust the therapist the treatment is not effective so it is very important that if you don't like your therapist during 1st appointment you can change one.
During the first appointment, a person is briefed about the treatment plan in detail like what kind of therapy will be used, the goals of treatment discussed, the length of each session, and how many sessions can be expected. Not every appointment needs to be carried out in the office depending on the situation. The therapist can choose places like a garden, beach, or any other place near nature that helps you express your thoughts and feelings in a better way.
Conclusion:
Psychotherapy is one of the most important treatment modalities used to treat people dealing with mental health issues like anxiety, depression, bad breakups, divorce, or and other conditions like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia. Along with medicinal treatment, psychotherapy helps to fasten the healing process by replacing the toxic thoughts with the healthy ones and directing an individual toward a better and happy life. There are various types of psychotherapeutic measures based on which it is divided into 4 types CBD, and psychodynamic therapy. Psychotherapy is also used in people undergoing rehabilitation after accidents or severe life-threatening diseases like cancer. It has also been proven effective in individuals who are addicts and decide to quit the habit. It is verbal, the experimental way towards a healthy lifestyle by altering the way you look at life and handle the situations.
