--Original published at Caitlin's corner
I chose option 1 for my last first impression post.
Our psychology textbook lists the four major types of psychotherapy; psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, and humanistic. I will be ranking these according to how helpful I think they would be to me, one being the best and four being the least helpful and why/why not.
- Cognitive psychotherapy is based on the cognitive model, which states that thoughts, feelings and behavior are all connected, and that individuals can move toward overcoming difficulties and meeting their goals by identifying and changing unhelpful or inaccurate thinking, problematic behavior, and distressing emotional responses. This involves the individual working collaboratively with the therapist to develop skills for testing and modifying beliefs, identifying distorted thinking, relating to others in different ways, and changing behaviors. A tailored cognitive case conceptualization is developed by the cognitive therapist as a roadmap to understand the individual’s internal reality, select appropriate interventions and identify areas of distress.
I think this form of therapy would be best for me since I personally believe that if you don’t change anything or identify what’s causing you distress and make appropriate changes to avoid it, you can’t expect to feel or do anything differently. You have to identify problems and work on ways to work past them that are specific to you. Just talk can be productive and help with introspection, but I feel like labeling things as being problematic or the cause of your problems, you can more easily make changes to avoid those feelings or stop them completely.
2. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is a form of depth psychology, the primary focus of which is to reveal the unconscious content of a client’s psyche in an effort to alleviate psychic tension.
In this way, it is similar to psychoanalysis. It also relies on the interpersonal relationship between client and therapist more than other forms of in-depth psychology. In terms of approach, this form of therapy uses psychoanalysis adapted to a less intensive style of working, usually at a frequency of once or twice per week. This seems like it would be a good fit for me and I actually do currently go to talk therapy. Since I rely highly on friends and family to be able to vent to. Just getting it out there and talking about it really helps me put things into perspective and work it out on my own, obviously with a game plan my counselor and I make for myself.
3. Humanistic psychotherapy is primarily the type of therapy that encourages a self-awareness and mindfulness which then helps the client change their state of mind and behavior from one set of reactions to a healthier one with more productive self-awareness and thoughtful actions. Essentially, this approach allows the merging of mindfulness and behavioral therapy, with positive social support.
I really like the sound of this therapy, but honestly with my anxiety and depression, it can be so hard to change my state of mind. I feel so stuck sometimes or like it’s just not going to get better so this might not totally work in the long-run for me. It could potentially help my self-esteem and self-efficacy, but I feel like I need something that focuses on my environment and my interactions with it, more than my views and thoughts of myself. Although, I do see benefits to having a good view of myself. Self love is very important so you can love other’s, but it wouldn’t totally help me to fix my problems, I think.
4. Behavioral psychotherapy has a rich tradition in research and practice. From a purely behavioral perspective, behavior therapy has shown considerable success with clients from a variety of problems. Traditional behavior therapy draws from respondent conditioning and operant conditioning to solve client problems.
Honestly, depending on the problem this could work wonders for people who have behavior or personality issues, but for me and my anxiety/depression I don’t know if it would be a good fit. It could me get past my anxiety by putting me in situations that trigger it, but again, that could ultimately make it worse and have the opposite effect of trying to get comfortable in the situation, whatever it may be
