4 July 2012

posted in:

Are There Different Styles of Psychotherapy?

Short answer: yes.

Long answer…

…it’s sort of like martial arts. There’s karate and kung-fu, and aikido, and tae kwon do (to name a few). And yet there are streams of karate which may incorporate, say, judo. There are streams of kung-fu which also focus on tai chi chuan.

Similarly, with psychotherapy – whether the practitioner is a psychotherapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist – there are disciplines, called modalities. Here are a few, to give you an idea:

Freudian/Jungian: Freudian psychoanalysis is a scientifically-leaning attempt to understand the human mind using the idea of drives as a motivating factor in human psychological development. The Jungian approach is a split-off from Freudian psychoanalysis, much more accepting of the spiritual (and sometimes mystical) facets of human belief and how they inform our psychological development.

The traditional Freudian and Jungian approaches are known as one-person psychology: there may be two people in the therapeutic space, but only the analyst (as opposed to the client) is in control. The client associates, the analyst interprets. The analyst is the sole expert.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (aka CBT) is a rational approach. It tends to focus on very specific problems with the client, as opposed to allowing for deeper (less clear) problems to come to the surface. A CBT practitioner will typically structure a fixed number of sessions with a client, with the idea being that by the last session, whatever is ailing with the client will be worked out, not unlike a muscle. This may be handy for isolated problems, such as helping to quit smoking, or perhaps some forms of anger management.

Relational Psychotherapy: Relational Psychotherapy is a newer, dynamic form of therapy. Unlike Freudian/Jungian approaches, it is a two-person psychology: there is mutuality between the therapist and the client, and the structure is such that the therapist is not positioned as an all-knowing expert who controls the kite strings. This leads to greater, fuller communication between therapist and client.

The general idea behind Relational Psychotherapy is that interpersonal relationships are a foundation of how we are raised, how we develop, and how we see ourselves at the end of the day. The focus is on the present, the here-and-now with the understanding that, while relevant events of the past are welcomed into the therapeutic space, it’s how the client feels now which is what’s ultimately important. Unlike CBT, Relational Psychotherapy is not hyper-focused on fixing isolated problems, since some problems which may seem isolated may have deeper roots in our behaviour.