Treatment And Therapy

This sections provides information on many of the most widely known types of psychology related therapeutic approaches.

Often referred to as behavior modification, is a therapeutic approach of altering a person's behaviors and reactions to stimuli through positive and negative reinforcement. A simple example of positive reinforcement in behavior modification is providing compliments, approval, encouragement, and affirmation.

Is a treatment technique in which people are trained to improve their health by using signals from their own bodies. Physical therapists use biofeedback to help stroke victims regain movement in paralyzed muscles. Psychologists use it to help tense and anxious clients learn to relax. Specialists in many different fields use biofeedback to help their patients cope with pain.

Is a form of psychotherapy that emphasizes the important role of thinking in how we feel and what we do. Cognitive-behavioral therapist teach that when our brains are healthy, it is our thinking that causes us to feel and act the way we do. Therefore, if we are experiencing unwanted feelings and behaviors, it is important to identify the thinking that is causing the feelings and behaviors and to learn how to replace this thinking with thoughts that lead to more desirable reactions.

Also called Systematic Desensitization (SD or Desensitization) is a type of behavioral therapy used in the field of psychology to help effectively overcome fears, phobias, and other anxiety disorders. To begin the process of systematic desensitization, one must first be taught relaxation skills in order to control fear and anxiety responses to specific phobias. Once the individual has been taught these skills, he or she must use them to react towards and overcome situations in an established hierarchy of fears. The goal of this process is that an individual will learn to cope and overcome the fear in each step of the hierarchy, which will lead to overcoming the last step of the fear in the hierarchy. Systematic desensitization is sometimes called graduated exposure therapy.

Also known as Electroshock Therapy, is a controversial medical treatment involving the induction of a seizure in a patient by passing electricity through the brain. Patients with any of several conditions often show dramatic short-term improvement after the procedure. While the majority of psychiatrists believe that properly administered ECT is a safe and effective treatment for some conditions, primarily depression, a vocal minority of psychiatrists, former patients, anti-psychiatry activists, and others strongly criticize the procedure as extremely harmful to patients' subsequent mental state.

Is therapy that uses hypnosis.  Hypnosis is a state of mind in which a person's conscious critical thinking mind is bypassed and communication with the subconscious mind is established. Although some individuals experience an increase in suggestibility and subjective feelings of an 'altered state of consciousness', this is not true for everyone.

Is a therapeutic approach that helps in understanding how the human mind operates in order to best use it to either increase performance and achieve your goals or as a therapy to overcome fears, phobias, anxiety and many other personality disorders.

Is a group of psychological theories and therapeutic methods based on the pioneering work of Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis seeks to discover connections among the unconscious components of patients' mental processes. The analyst's goal is to help liberate the patient from unexamined or unconscious barriers of transference and resistance, that is, past patterns of relating that are no longer serviceable or that inhibit freedom.

Is a generic term that includes a variety of techniques which typically use dialogue and communication and which are designed to improve the mental health of a client or to improve group relationships (such as in a family).  Psychotherapy may address specific forms of diagnosable mental illness (such as depression, anxiety disorders, phobias, and addictions) or everyday problems in relationships or meeting personal goals. Treatment of everyday problems is more often referred to as counseling but the term is sometimes used interchangeably with "psychotherapy".

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy's (REBT) central premise is that events alone do not cause a person to feel depressed, enraged, or highly anxious. Rather, it is one’s beliefs about the events which contributes to unhealthy feelings and self defeating behaviors.  Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy teaches the client to identify, evaluate, dispute, and act against his or her irrational self- defeating beliefs, thus helping the client to not only feel better but to get better.

The Reality Therapy approach to counseling and problem-solving focuses on the here-and-now of the client and how to create a better future, instead of concentrating at length on the past. It emphasizes making decisions, and taking action and control of one's own life. Typically, clients seek to discover what they really want and whether what they are currently doing (how they are choosing to behave) is actually bringing them nearer to, or further away from, that goal.

Family therapy, also referred to as couple and family therapy, family systems therapy, and marriage therapy, is a branch of psychotherapy that works with families and couples.  It tends to view the systems of interaction between family members. As such, family problems have been seen to based on family interactions, rather than to be blamed on individual members.

Group psychotherapy is intended to help people improve their ability to cope with problems. While in individual therapy the therapist meets with only the client, in group therapy the meeting is with a group of people and one or two therapists. Group therapy focuses on both individual problems and on interpersonal interactions.