Psychotherapy

The main purpose of psychotherapy is to increase an individual's sense of well being and reduce their sense of discomfort.

There are various different approaches to psychotherapy.

One of the approaches is the biomedical approach it involves pharmacological treatments i.e. antidepressant drugs for anxiety or depression.

Another approach is the psycho dynamic approach, it is a form of depth psychology, the goal of this method for the psychotherapist is to open up the unconscious content of the mind in order to treat the psychic tension of the patient.

Although this method stems from the psychoanalysis it is a less intensive method.

A humanistic/existential approach is connected with the belief that human beings are alone in this world and because of this belief a person may feel a sense of meaningless, this indirect approach offers positive growth, the opportunity for the patient to recognize his/her problems and encourages them selves to create their own values and meanings and to make changes.

Furthermore, The cognitive mental aspect of behavior is based on the belief that negative feelings are a result of negative thoughts, So thereby; if a person can change their thoughts then that person can change their feelings and their behavior.

In contrast to this; behavioral psychotherapy is a directive approach based on the principles of classical and instrumental conditioning, just focusing on behavior and not thoughts.

An approach that combines these two is Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy.

The approach used by a psychotherapist depends very much on the client, it is also common for the different approaches to be combined together in order to help the client needs. We may see many more approaches being developed in the future of psychotherapy.