Psychotherapy: Know the 8 Main Types

Hello friends!

This is a text for anyone who is thinking about having therapy with a psychology professional and wants to know more about each of the possibilities. It can also be useful for those who are studying psychology at college and still haven’t decided on a theoretical line.

I explain: psychology has several lines or approaches and each of them will have specific techniques. Putting it in a very simple way: each professional will have a “way” of acting. Let’s meet the main types?

1) Psychoanalysis

I start with Freud’s psychoanalysis because it is considered one of the 3 strengths of psychology. During college, we studied Freudian work a lot and those who want to go deeper end up doing a postgraduate course or a training course (which lasts about 5 years).

Before developing his own method, Freud used hypnosis. He observed that the patients improved after a few sessions, but the previous symptoms often returned after a while. In this way, and because he did not like to hypnotize, he abandoned hypnosis and started using the method of free association.

It works like this: the patient arrives at the psychoanalyst’s office and in the first sessions there are evaluation sessions, technically called preliminary interviews. After this assessment and if indicated, the analyst explains the method and the patient lies down on the couch.

The method consists of saying everything that comes to mind, without criticizing what comes, even if it is silly, strange or meaningless. The analyst, in turn, will help the patient in this process, allowing him to break his resistance and open up. He will also make interpretations and with the patient’s elaborations, the analysis process provides self-knowledge and gradual transformation of symptoms.

It is important to note that it is a non-directive method. That is, the analyst does not suggest that the patient do this or that or say this or that. The analysis takes place from the patient’s associations and the symptoms (suffering) and dreams, if they appear, are analyzed.

Many people think that the analyst is quiet for the entire session and only the patient speaks. Not much out there. A good analyst will interpret at various times, although he may be silent during part of the process. That is to say, an analyst who is silent the entire session – and every session – is simply not doing his job.

The duration of an analysis is extremely variable and there is a question of whether or not there is an end of the analysis (for those who want to know more, I recommend the text Endless and Endless Analysis, of Freud). But let’s say a review to drive change takes anywhere from 6 months to 2 years. As it is also a process of self-knowledge, many continue analysis even after they have overcome their initial symptoms, and some stay in analysis for ten years or more.

2) Jung’s Analytical Psychology (Jungian Analysis)

Jung was one of the most important psychologists of the 20th century. He helped to consolidate psychoanalysis between 1907 and 1912 and was even the first President of the International Psychoanalytic Association. However, he disagreed with certain of Freud’s assumptions.

In Jungian therapy, significant differences are noted in relation to Freud’s method. First, the analyst does not have his back to the patient (lying on the couch). The two sit facing each other. As in psychoanalysis, dreams can become an important source of information about the patient, however, as the notion of the unconscious is different in the two lines, we will find in Jung’s Analytical Psychology the concept of personification of the unconscious.

In other words, when we dream, we dream narratives. In these narratives we find certain characters who, from time to time, change.

To get in “contact” with these characters, Jung preferred to use the method of active imagination, rather than using the method of free association. In active imagination, the patient learns how to let go of his fantasies and get closer to his other inner sides.

To help with the imagination, techniques generally linked to the arts are used. Therefore, Jung is studied extensively in art therapy courses. Paintings, sculptures, drawings, writing techniques, sandbox technique (Sandplay) are often used.

3) Behaviorism – Behavioral

When I mentioned psychoanalysis, I said that it is considered one of the 3 strengths of psychology. The second force is behavioral, since Jung’s Analytical Psychology can be classified as a theory close to psychoanalysis, in the so-called psychodynamic psychologies (which defend the existence of the unconscious).

It is difficult to say of a single behaviorism, as there are schools that also differ among themselves on certain aspects. But we can understand the general approach if we see that your view is that we should understand and change behavior.

Behavioral psychology begins with Watson and is expanded with the ingenious studies of BF Skinner, who managed to prove empirically, in the laboratory, several functional relationships between antecedent stimuli, behavior and consequent stimuli.

A behavior is not just what we do. Thoughts, emotions, and speech are also defined as behaviors. And human behavior has a structure that has rules. In other words, there are laws that allow us to understand and change it.

An organism (a subject) behaves in a certain way with its friends and in another way with its family. This is just one example of how behavior changes according to the environment. (The environment also includes what we think, feel internally, that is, what others cannot directly observe).

Thus, behavior therapy focuses its efforts on behavior modification. It’s a more directive approach. The behavioral analyst will assess what the patient needs and will help with specific techniques for transformation. These techniques will be directed to the individual’s particular problem.

For example, let’s say the patient is afraid of heights. Fear is a conditioned response of the organism. This means that height elicits a response that the patient cannot alter. As he cannot change it by himself, he tries to run away from the fear, which does not solve anything, he just maintains the fear response with the avoidance behavior (escape).

In this case, the analyst can use a technique such as systematic desensitization. Roughly speaking, it would be like making successive approximations so that fear gradually decreases with exposure to the environment that generates fear.

This is just an example. For each problem or disorder, the behavioral analyst has specific techniques to help the patient. Often “homework” is given to be done between sessions. That’s why we say it’s a more directive approach. It also often happens that the analyst leaves his office and goes with the patient to help him with a certain activity, such as overcoming his fear of heights.

4) Humanism

The leading exponent of humanistic therapy is psychologist Carl Rogers. It is difficult to say in a few words how his person-centered therapy works. But I think his concept of unconditional acceptance helps us to understand his principles and the way he conducted psychotherapy, individually and in groups.

For Rogers, we can only change when we accept ourselves. As he said: “The curious paradox is that when I accepted like me amso I change🇧🇷

The classic example for acceptance being key to change is the alcohol and drug problem. As long as a person uses a particular substance, they generally believe that they are not addicted and that they have control over their use. You may even joke about your abuse, but you don’t really accept that you have a problem. It’s only when she accepts that she has a problem that she can change.

Of course, person-centered therapy is not just about this kind of change. Unconditional acceptance by the therapist will provide the patient with an understanding of himself.

We can also understand the usefulness and effectiveness of humanistic therapy when we realize that self-criticism is terrible for mental health. The therapist’s acceptance and even the affection he shows for his patient (preferably called a client in humanism) makes him also start to accept himself as he is. And acceptance generates change, and along with it generates more self-confidence.

Sessions in humanistic therapy are not structured. Humanism is classified as the third force in psychology and sought to study less mental illness and more the optimal states of human beings, such as states of personal and spiritual fulfillment.

5) Body Psychotherapy – Reich

Reich was an important psychoanalyst. He also disagreed with Freud, as did Jung and Adler, on theoretical, political, and practical grounds. For him, just sitting and talking about what he feels and suffers would be insufficient for improvement, since psychic suffering is reflected in the body as a whole.

With his very interesting theory of character armor, he tried to show this relationship between muscular tension and psychic suffering, treating the symptoms not only through verbal expression, but mainly with body modification, with different body postures, changes in balance and barycenter, breathing and relaxation of the tensions of these shells (eyes, mouth, throat, diaphragm, genitals, anus).

Reich’s psychotherapy is therefore more physical and bodily and less verbal and mental. Individual assessments are made to investigate what needs to be changed and individual techniques are prescribed with a view to prior assessment.

6) Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

We talked above about behavior therapy. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, known as CBT, is a modification that emerged in behavioral therapy especially from the work of Aaron Beck on depression.

See it here – Cognitive Psychology of Depression Course (50% off for a limited time!)

Interestingly, Beck started by doing laboratory research to see if Freud’s hypotheses about mourning and melancholia (depression) were correct. And, little by little, he came to understand that it was cognition, that is, the way of thinking and interpreting the world – peculiar in every mental disorder – that made the patient sick.

Roughly speaking, it would be as if each patient had a way of seeing the world. When this form changed to a “depressive” or “anxious” form, he would have all the symptoms of depression or anxiety. All the therapist therefore needed to do was help the patient to regain a world view, a cognition, different and more adequate to face external stimuli.

Cognitive behavioral therapy, similar to behavioral therapy, is directive. It has structured sessions and usually the psychologist will inform the average of sessions for the problem being treated.

Learn more here – 10 Principles of Cognitive Therapy

7) Transpersonal

We can situate transpersonal psychology as a…