Jun
03
Psychotherapy is practiced by psychologists and psychiatrists, with training for these professionals being defined by most jurisdictions where they practice. In many countries, for example, a psychologist generally has at minimum a Bachelors degree in Psychology, while a psychiatrist is required to have both a medical degree and psychology training.
Psychotherapy involves the utilisation of various techniques for helping a person with emotional, cognitive or behavioural problems. Traditionally, these techniques were developed within a specific school of thought, which made assumptions about the nature of the person and what constituted “help”. Examples of psycho-therapeutic orientations include Psychoanalysis (Psychodynamic Therapy), Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy and Humanistic Therapy. There are many other systems for therapy, but the three just listed have been the most popular. A more recent trend has been for psychotherapists to be integrative in their approaches, borrowing and mixing traditional approaches to suit their own views and methods of helping clients.
Ways of helping the client vary from one therapeutic system to the next, but include things such as developing insight (so that clients can understand their behaviour and make better choices in the future), various forms of behavioural conditioning (changing, removing or strengthening stimuli to modify behaviour) and creating a nurturing environment between the therapist and client, in which the client is assumed able to find the solutions to his or her problems and is encouraged to do so.