Heal Yourself With Psychotherapy Plr Ebook

Table Of Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1: Introduction To Psychotherapy

Chapter 2: Types Of Psychotherapies

Chapter 3: Psychoanalysis

Chapter 4: Gestalt Therapy

Chapter 5: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Chapter 6: Expressive Therapy Chapter 7: Hypnotherapy

Wrapping Up

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Chapter 2: Types Of Psychotherapies

Synopsis

Today, many new types of psychotherapies have been developed, improved on and used in the clinical setting. Currently, there are up to hundreds of psychotherapeutic approaches or schools of thought.

Sorts

It was reported that by 1980 there were more than 250 types of methods used. By 1996 there were more than 450. The development of new and hybrid approaches continues around the wide variety of theoretical backgrounds and patient settings.

Many healthcare practitioners use a variety of methods based on their patients’ needs. With the development of newer and more effective methods, regulatory boards have also flourished to monitor and regulate the practice of these methods to ensure the safety and effectiveness of the patients.

If you are facing a particular problem, you may consider doing your own research into the types of psychotherapies to see which would be most appropriate to help you solve your problems.

Some of the common psychotherapies used include:
– Psychoanalysis
– Gestalt Therapy
– Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
– Expressive Therapy
– Hypnotherapy

In the next chapter, we will have a more detailed look into these therapies.

Chapter 3: Psychoanalysis

Synopsis

This technique was first developed by the father of psychoanalysis – Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud in the 19th and early 20th century.

Here are the basic concepts of psychoanalysis:

The Concept

-Human behavior is largely due to emotional drives instead of logical drives
-These drives are largely not conscious
-Bringing these drives to awareness brings up resistance (in many forms)
-Besides genetic factors, our childhood environment affects ones development
– Conflicts between conscious view of reality and unconscious (repressed) material can result in mental illnesses such as clinical depression, anxiety etc.
– Liberation from the effects of the unconscious material is achieved through bringing this material into the consciousness

This is often portrayed in the mainstream media – where you see someone lying on a sofa chair while being counseled by someone.

It is believed that a person’s verbalized thoughts, free associations, fantasies and dreams lies the key to the causes of the patient’s problems, and interpretation of these findings can help the patient to create insight to the resolution of the problem.

Treatment begins when a patient fully trusts in the psychotherapist to allow him/her to analyze his problems. The patient is fully rested on a sofa couch out of sight of the psychotherapist.

From there, the psychotherapist will begin to interpret the patient’s unconscious conflicts which interfere with his current days function. Through frame therapy, he is able to help the patient resolve conflicts within himself by dwelling deep into the distorted perceptions of the patient towards reality (which is mainly caused by childhood experiences).

When well rested on the couch, the patient is able to remember more clearly about his past as well as experience more resistance and transference, and be able to reorganize thoughts after the development of new insights.

Some of the common treatable problems through this method include:

Phobias, compulsions, obsessions, anxiety, attacks, depressions, sexual dysfunctions, a wide variety of relationship problems.

The patient must first undergo a preliminary stage of psychoanalysis to see if he is suited for assessment and also allow the psychotherapist to form the best model of treatment for the patient.

Chapter 4: Gestalt Therapy

Synopsis

Gestalt therapy was founded by Fritz Perls, Laura Perls and Paul Goodman in the 1940s and 1950s.

Gestalt therapists help patients by focusing on what’s happening now rather than what has happened in the past, what could be happening in the future or what should be happening.

One Approach

The emphasis is on personal responsibility, and that focuses upon the individual’s experience in the present moment. Patients are thought how to enhance their awareness on the present moment rather than what they perceive or distinguish based on their pre-existing values.

Basic concepts:

1) The Phenomenological Perspective

This concept helps patients realize what is really happening in the present rather than what they perceive is happening based on their past beliefs or experiences by enhancing their state or ability of awareness.

2) The Field Theory Perspective

This theory states that parts are in immediate relationship and responsive to each other and no part is uninfluenced by what goes on elsewhere in the field.

The field replaces the notion of discrete, isolated particles. The person in his or her life space constitutes a field.
In field theory no action is at a distance; that is, what has effect must touch that which is affected in time and space.

3) The Existential Perspective

The existential perspective focuses on people’s existence and relations with each other such joys and suffering. It states that people are always remaking or discovering themselves. There is no essence of human nature to be discovered “once and for all.” There are always new horizons, new problems and new opportunities.

4) The Dialogue

This method focuses on the relationship between the therapist and the patient. Gestalt therapy helps clients develop their own support for desired contact or withdrawal. Support, here means anything that makes contact or withdrawal possible such as energy, body support, breathing, information, concern for others, language etc.

Support mobilizes resources for contact or withdrawal. For example, to support the excitement accompanying contact, a person must take in enough oxygen.

The practitioner works by engaging in dialogue rather than by manipulating the patient toward some therapeutic goal. This contact is characterized by straight forward caring, warmth, acceptance and self-responsibility.