Psychology · Ch 5 — Therapeutic Approaches
Introduction
Introduction
In the previous chapter, you studied the major psychological disorders and the distress they cause to both patients and the people around them. This chapter turns to the other side of that picture — the therapeutic methods psychotherapists use to help patients cope with and overcome these conditions.
Psychotherapy is not a single method but a family of approaches. Some focus on helping the client build self-understanding, while others are more action-oriented, aiming directly at changing behaviour. Whatever the approach, all of them share the same underlying goal: helping the patient overcome a debilitating condition. How effective a particular therapy proves to be for a given patient depends on several factors — the severity of the disorder, the degree of distress it causes to others, and practical considerations such as the time, effort, and money available for treatment.
Every therapeutic approach is fundamentally corrective and helping in nature, and every one of them rests on an interpersonal relationship between the therapist and the client. Some approaches are directive, such as the psychodynamic approach, while others — such as the person-centred approach — are non-directive.
This chapter briefly introduces some of the major forms of psychotherapy in use today.