Psychotherapy

The essentials

Psychotherapy is a voluntary relationship between the one seeking treatment (the client) and the one who treats (the therapist). Its purpose is to help the client solve psychological problems. All psychotherapies share some characteristics: systematic application of principles from theories; they are practised only by trained persons; the therapeutic situation involves a therapist and a client; and the relationship is confidential, interpersonal and dynamic.

Key points

• Goals: reinforcing the client's resolve for betterment, lessening emotional pressure, unfolding the potential for positive growth, modifying habits, changing thinking patterns, increasing self-awareness, facilitating interpersonal relations and communication, facilitating decision-making, becoming aware of choices and relating to the social environment more creatively.
• Therapeutic relationship (therapeutic alliance) has two components: the contractual nature (agreed terms between client and therapist) and the limited duration.
• Essential qualities in the therapist: unconditional positive regard (acceptance without conditions), empathy (understanding the client's experience as if it were one's own), warmth and trustworthiness, and confidentiality.
• Empathy vs sympathy: sympathy is feeling sorry for someone; empathy is understanding from the other's point of view. Intellectual understanding is understanding without feeling.
• Psychotherapies can be classified by: what causes the problem, how the cause came into existence, what the chief method of treatment is, the nature of the client-therapist relationship, the chief benefit to the client and the duration of treatment.
• On these bases, three broad groups exist: psychodynamic, behaviour and existential (humanistic) therapies; cognitive therapy is also widely used.

Exam tips

• Remember the contract and limited duration as the two parts of the therapeutic alliance.

Common mistakes

• Treating therapy as friendship; the relationship is professional, with boundaries and a set duration.
• Equating empathy with sympathy.