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1. #1Affirmative Therapy

   Keys: Affirmative Therapy

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   Overview: Affirmative therapy, or LGBTQ+ affirmative therapy, is a therapeutic approach that validates and advocates for the needs of sexual and gender minority individuals. Affirmative therapy employs a positive and informed lens when working with LGBTQ+ clients, as it celebrates and validates their identities, as well as acknowledges the stigma and obstacles that these clients may face. The opposite of affirmative therapy would be any therapeutic practice that aims to “fix” or change sexual and gender-diverse clients, or that judges or shames them.

   When it is Used: Affirmative therapy involves an awareness of societal challenges like stigma and bias—which can result in stress, anxiety, and depression—and helps clients process and cope with those challenges.

   How it Works: Sexual and gender minority individuals often face challenges of prejudice and bias, which can lead to a unique experience of stress, anxiety, avoidance, and other mental health issues. Affirmative therapy provides a supportive environment for patients to process those experiences while feeling confident that the therapist validates their identity.

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2. #2Bibliotherapy

   Keys: Bibliotherapy

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   Overview: Bibliotherapy is a therapeutic approach employing books and other forms of literature, typically alongside more traditional therapy modalities, to support a patient’s mental health. Though the books recommended by therapists can encompass any genre or theme—from philosophy to memoir to self-help—bibliotherapists typically make use of fiction. Reading specific pieces of literature and talking about them with a therapist (or in a group therapy setting) is thought to help patients understand perspectives other than their own, make sense of a difficult past or upsetting symptoms, or experience feelings of hope, contentment, and empathy. More generally, reading is also thought to improve self-esteem, self-awareness, and feelings of self-efficacy.",

   When it is Used: Bibliotherapy can be applied to patients suffering from anxiety, depression, or other mood disorders; those struggling with trauma or addiction; or those going through grief, a divorce, or other relationship-related challenges. Bibliotherapy can be practiced in either individual or group therapy sessions, or without the guidance of a therapist at all. When conducted with a therapist, bibliotherapy is rarely used as a primary or sole modality of treatment; rather, it tends to be used in conjunction with other approaches such as cognitive-behavioral therapy or psychodynamic therapy.

   What to Expect: Typically, a bibliotherapist will recommend a book or books based on their preferred modality and on the patient’s specific challenges. A cognitive-behavioral therapist, for instance, may recommend a self-help workbook outlining research-supported CBT principles; a therapist specializing in trauma, on the other hand, may recommend a novel about a character who endured childhood abuse. The patient will then, on their own time, read the book or complete the workbook exercise as prescribed. Upon returning to therapy, the book or exercise will be discussed and used as a jumping-off point to explore coping mechanisms, personal history, or other factors relevant to the therapeutic experience.

   How it Works: Reading books—particularly those offering a new perspective or taking a reader outside their comfort zone—can increase empathy, tolerance for others, and interpersonal skills, such as the ability to read the emotions of others. In a therapeutic setting, bibliotherapy is thought to be effective because it provides an additional outlet for patients to work through problems and can help an individual recognize that they are not alone in their struggles. This process may occur in four stages: Identification (the reader affiliates with a character in the text and identifies with their problems and goals), Catharsis (the reader experiences the character’s emotions, struggles, and hopes from a safe, removed position), Insight (the reader recognizes similarities between the characters or situations in the text and the reader’s own circumstances and the decision to apply ideas from the text to the reader’s life), and Universalization (the reader realizes they are not alone. Others have experienced similar challenges and found ways to navigate them).

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3. #3Christian Counseling

   Keys: Christian Counseling

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   Overview: Christian counseling is a broad category of emotional and relationship support that draws on the principles of Christianity to help clients cope with challenges. Because religious faith can play a significant role in an individual’s life, many prospective therapy clients who identify as Christian feel more comfortable seeing a counselor who shares their beliefs or who is at least prepared to discuss their faith openly and without judgment.

   When it is Used: When working with Christian clients, they may discuss the applicability of biblical principles or how a client’s religious values can guide them through challenges. Like other clients, individuals who identify as Christian may seek help for a range of challenges—including mental health conditions like depression and anxiety, relationship problems or marital discord, or non-clinical issues such as grief or anger.

   What to Expect: Christian psychologists will typically make use of other therapeutic modalities, such as CBT, psychodynamic therapy, or trauma-informed therapy. While employing cognitive-behavioral techniques, for example, a Christian therapist may also encourage discussion of Christian values and the role they might play in addressing the client’s challenges, work through any questions or contradictions the client sees in their faith, or help them uncover strategies to better express their faith or integrate it into their daily life. In some cases, therapist and client may directly discuss biblical verses or parables, or other aspects of Christian teachings. Clients who begin therapy with specific problems they hope to solve might receive guidance or advice that is based specifically on the teachings of the Bible.

   How it Works: Many people identify as somewhat or strongly religious. Thus, someone's emotional or psychological well-being can be closely intertwined with their faith. Religion can have a positive effect on individuals’ lives, offering a source of meaning, creating a sense of community, or encouraging values like forgiveness and compassion. Effective Christian psychologists can draw on these principles over the course of psychotherapy, using them to help clients identify the values that are most important to them and use their faith to bolster their well-being. On the other hand, many religious people struggle with their faith and may even come to feel that this struggle is contributing to their emotional or interpersonal challenges; an effective Christian counselor can help them navigate these questions and better understand the place religion has in their life.

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4. #4Dance Therapy

   Keys: Dance Therapy

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   Overview: Dance therapy, sometimes referred to as dance/movement therapy or DMT, is a mental health treatment that uses dance and other forms of physical movement to improve someone’s emotional and psychological functioning. Dance therapy has been used to treat a wide variety of mental health disorders including depression, eating disorders, and PTSD, as well as non-clinical issues such as low self-esteem, body image concerns, or grief. Because dance is a form of exercise, the therapy may also result in physical benefits such as improved sleep and increased energy, in addition to its cognitive/emotional effects.

   When it is Used: Dance therapy can be utilized for a wide variety of conditions and challenges, including anxiety, autism, dementia, depression, interpersonal issues such as family conflict or domestic violence, low self-esteem, and more. While it can be used on its own, dance therapy is often used as a complement to more traditional therapies.

   What to Expect: Dance therapy sessions often start with a warm-up or a verbal check-in, and often both. Therapist and client may decide on a “theme” to explore that session, based either on the client’s needs or on a program designed by the therapist. During the session itself, the therapist will guide the client through dance or other forms of movement that aim to express their internal emotional state. Clients are often encouraged to free-associate; in some cases, they may be asked to create specific visual metaphors to represent an internal challenge. Therapists may move with the client or simply observe; some therapists engage in what is known as “mirroring,” or matching a client’s movements, in order to illustrate empathy or validate the client’s self-expression. Clients may be asked to pay specific attention to certain bodily movements or to their breath, in an effort to encourage mindful awareness and keep the focus on the present moment. After a session is complete, the therapist and client will discuss and process what occurred.

   How it Works: Dance therapy aims to strengthen the connection between the brain and the body by allowing for authentic, non-verbal expression of emotions in a safe, non-judgmental environment. Some people who struggle to express themselves verbally—due to anxiety, trauma, low self-esteem, or other challenges—may find physical expression to be easier and less threatening and thus may especially benefit from dance therapy. What’s more, people with eating disorders or body image issues often feel disconnected from or angry toward their bodies; dance therapy is thought to restore their connection with their physical self and foster a greater sense of appreciation for what the body is capable of. Dance can also serve as a form of exercise, which can itself bolster physical health in addition to mental health.

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5. #5Eclectic Therapy

   Keys: Eclectic Therapy

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   Overview: Eclectic therapy is a form of psychotherapy that adapts to the unique needs of each patient, depending on the problem, the treatment goals, and the person’s expectations and motivation. An eclectic therapist draws from a variety of disciplines and may use a range of proven methods to determine the best combination of therapeutic tools to help a patient. In effect, an eclectic therapist customizes the therapeutic process for each individual by using whatever form of treatment, or combination of treatments, has been shown to be most effective for a particular problem.

   When it is Used: Eclectic therapy can be useful when a therapist believes that a patient may benefit from a multi-modal approach or when a particular treatment type is not providing results and a therapist and patient want to try another avenue.

   What to Expect: Eclectic therapy can take many paths, depending on the approaches invoked by the therapist. For this reason, it may seem unstructured at first. Working with the therapist, the client may try different techniques before treatment becomes more consistent when what works best for them has been discovered.

   How it Works: Using a flexible approach, rather than a more traditionally structured and straightforward one, the eclectic therapist tailors the therapeutic process to the needs of the patient and determines which treatment types will be most helpful for that person. The therapist is not restricted to a one-size-fits-all modality and is not looking for universal behavior patterns. Instead, the therapist gathers very specific information from the patient, then matches the form of treatment to the individual and his or her disorder.

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6. #6Experiential Therapy

   Keys: Experiential Therapy

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   Overview: Experiential therapy is a category of therapeutic techniques in which expressive tools and activities—such as role-playing or acting, props, arts and crafts, music, animal care, guided imagery, or various forms of recreation—are used to allow clients to re-enact and re-experience emotional situations from their past or their relationships. The objective of experiential therapy is to focus on the activities and, through these experiences, better identify emotions associated with success, disappointment, responsibility, and self-esteem. Under the guidance of a trained experiential therapist, the client can explore and cope with feelings of anger, hurt, or shame, related to their past experiences, that may have been ignored or pushed away previously.

   When it is Used: Experiential therapy may be used to treat a wide range of psychiatric disorders and life challenges, including trauma, eating disorders, behavior disorders, anger management, grief, and loss; it is also regularly used as one component of substance abuse treatment. It may also be recommended for individuals who don’t have diagnosable disorders but who struggle with painful, unhappy, or otherwise bad feelings from past experiences or who simply desire to change the nature of their current and future relationships.

   What to Expect: Experiential therapy can take a variety of forms. Some commonly used techniques include psychodrama, in which the client creates and performs a brief play based on a past life event that caused or continues to cause distress. Re-enacting this situation in a safe space, sometimes more than once, is thought to allow the client to process and let go of negative emotions triggered by the event, as well as develop more adaptive ways of responding to similar situations in the future. The therapist will focus on the client’s awareness and perceptions of what they are experiencing through these interventions, and help them explore the meaning of their emotions. Such conversations with the therapist may take place while the client is performing the activity or in a counseling session afterward.

   How it Works: A fundamental premise of experiential therapy is that one’s perception determines one’s behavior. By harnessing various types of creative expression to re-experience and release negative emotions, the client may experience positive feelings such as love, forgiveness, and calm in the present. By participating in experiential interventions with guidance from a therapist, the client is thought to gain deeper access to their own emotional processing, creativity, inner thoughts, and motivations that drive their interactions with others. At the same time, they will learn to reflect on their experiences to more comfortably make their own choices and decisions. Many forms of experiential therapy also call on the client to directly confront a situation or memory that is troubling to them; in this way, experiential therapy can help clients resolve internal conflicts that have long been ignored.

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7. #7Expressive Arts Therapy

   Keys: Expressive Arts Therapy

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   Overview: Expressive arts therapy combines psychology and the creative process to promote emotional growth and healing. This multi-arts, or intermodal, approach to psychotherapy and counseling uses our inborn desire to create; such a therapeutic tool can help initiate change. For some people who have a hard time articulating what they are feeling, self-expression through art can be useful. Expressive arts therapy draws from a variety of art forms, and this integration of methods can help patients access their emotions.

   When it is Used: Expressive arts therapy is used with both children and adults, as individuals or in groups, to nurture deep personal growth and transformation. Journaling, storytelling, reading literature and poetry, as well as making life maps, videos, and memory books are all forms of expressive art therapy; this can help more mature clients review and make meaning of their lives; this is a way to tell their life stories, as well as work through and heal from traumatic experiences. It also helps patients better engage with family and other significant people in their lives.

   What to Expect: Expressive arts therapy can be accomplished via the creation of different art forms; the commonality is the use of multiple senses to explore the client's inner and outer worlds. A therapist or counselor helps them to communicate feelings about the process and accomplishment of making art, and together with the therapist, the client uses the creative process to highlight and analyze problems and difficulties. Throughout the process, the client learns new and different ways to use the mostly nonverbal language of creativity to communicate inner feelings that were not previously available to them by simply thinking or talking about them.

   How it Works: At the core of expressive arts therapy is the concept of poiesis, the Greek root word for poetry, which refers to the natural process of moving from everyday expectations into the world of imagination and creativity that results in art-making. Art comes from a deep emotional place within the client, hence, creative endeavors will enable them to undergo a profound process of self-discovery and understanding. Creativity becomes the pathway to the expression of inner feelings, leading to a process of self-discovery and understanding, and the creative process becomes the client's road to emotional health. Many therapists also incorporate other modalities such as cognitive-behavioral or mindfulness-based cognitive therapies.

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8. #8Human Givens Therapy

   Keys: Human Givens Therapy

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   Overview: Just as humans have physical needs for water, food, and shelter, it is believed that humans are born with emotional needs that they must meet. These nine primary emotional needs are security, attention, a sense of autonomy and control, feeling part of a larger community, intimacy, privacy, status within social groups, competence and achievement, and meaning and purpose. When these needs are unmet, or cannot be met by an individual’s innate resources and instinctive knowledge, the result is likely to be stress, anxiety, depression, or other mental health concerns. The human givens therapeutic approach is to help people learn ways to think and act that will enable them to meet their core needs.

   When it is Used: This approach is geared toward helping people overcome a range of emotional and behavioral difficulties including anxiety, depression, stress, OCD, self-harm, relationship issues, trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), phobias, addiction, pain, anger, workplace stress, eating disorders, bereavement, psychosis, and stress.

   What to Expect: It is believed mental health concerns often develop from being in an environment that prevents the client from meeting their core needs; from having been conditioned to respond to challenges in unhealthy ways; or from a lack of social and emotional skills that can help them meet their needs. Therapists who follow the human givens approach aim to offer practical help, often through direct instruction, for dealing with mental and emotional distress in the here and now, based on their determination of what is keeping the client from being able to meet their needs. Therapy sessions tend to be less focused on exploring the past and its influences on clients’ issues or going on lengthy voyages of self-discovery into their psyche, but they do attempt to drill down on a client’s specific challenges and develop solutions tailored to their individual needs, challenges, and level of emotional resources. Through the sessions, human givens therapists hope to provide the client with the coping skills they need to address their immediate concerns and hopefully, those that will arise in the future.

   How it Works: It is believed that when people’s resources are used properly, and their environment is healthy, their emotional needs should be generally satisfied: They are emotionally well, their lives have meaning, and they flourish. When some or all of these needs are not met—perhaps because of misused resources or inadequate or faulty beliefs—individuals may become distressed and develop mental health problems that negatively impact their lives and relationships. The human givens approach thus looks at the areas in which a person’s life is, and is not, working well, with the goal of identifying missing emotional needs or misused resources—in other words, which needs are not being met and how they can be met. Its pragmatic, adaptable framework allows therapists to tailor brief, highly personalized interventions that typically integrate education and solution-driven thinking with some of the most effective elements of other therapeutic styles, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), interpersonal therapy, reflective listening, motivational interviewing, mindfulness, hypnotherapy, and guided imagery. Clients will receive education about their specific problem. A human givens psychotherapist will also help clients shift to taking on a healthier perspective, learn the skills necessary to resolve their difficulties, and rehearse making changes in their lives.

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9. #9Integrative Therapy

   Keys: Integrative Therapy

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   Overview: Integrative therapy is an individualized, holistic approach to therapy that combines ideas and techniques from different therapeutic schools of thought depending on the unique needs of a given client. By merging elements of different psychological theories or modifying standard treatments, integrative therapists can often offer a more flexible and inclusive approach to treatment. Sometimes referred to as holistic therapy, integrative therapy seeks to consider an individual’s mental, physical, and emotional health in a unified way. Through integrative therapy, the therapist and client will work together to understand the sources of the client’s anxiety, unhappiness, physical discomfort, or unhealthy behavior patterns.

   When it is Used: Integrative therapy may be beneficial for clients that seek to have a voice in the direction of their therapy, and who view the therapeutic relationship as a partnership. An integrative approach can also be used to treat a range of psychological concerns, including depression, anxiety, personality disorders, grief, low self-esteem, self-harm, trauma, PTSD, relationship issues, sleep concerns, sexual challenges, substance use disorders, and eating disorders.

   What to Expect: The therapist first seeks to discover and understand the individual's personality traits, preferences, needs, spiritual beliefs, openness, and motivation level. The therapist also seeks to understand the client's specific area of concern. Finally, the therapist uses different evidence-based therapeutic approaches to help the client's areas of concern.

   How it Works: A single approach to therapy does not always deliver the best benefit to the client, thus an integrative therapist will regularly evaluate a client’s progress with whatever modality is currently being tried, and be ready to pivot to a different approach when it becomes clear that they are not benefiting, or no longer benefiting, from it. These shifts are discussed with the client before being put into action. An integrative therapist draw upon a wide range of strategies and techniques such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), motivational interviewing, mindfulness, art or music therapy, psychodynamic therapy, humanistic therapy, psychodrama, meditation, family systems therapy, gestalt therapy, trauma-informed therapy, and more. The therapist may initially follow one primary approach but introduce elements of other techniques as the therapeutic relationship progresses, or as predetermined targets and goals are met. For example, on realizing that a client struggles with social anxiety, a therapist who takes a humanistic approach to a client's long-term goals and concerns may share techniques from CBT that specifically target the individual's situational anxiety.

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10. #10Music Therapy

    Keys: Music Therapy

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    Overview: Music therapy is a form of treatment that uses music within the therapeutic relationship to help accomplish the patient’s individualized goals. This evidence-based approach involves techniques such as listening to, reflecting on, and creating music under the guidance of a trained music therapist.

    When it is Used: Most effective when used with other therapies, music therapy can help clients to manage physical pain as well as providing comfort and boosting energy. Music therapy can be particularly helpful for clients with autism or depression. Music therapy can also help in lifting the client's mood, increasing their joy and awe, reducing anxiety, regulating difficult emotions, facilitating self-reflection, and assisting in the processing of trauma.

    What to Expect: After an initial assessment, a music therapist will tailor techniques to fit a client's musical ability, interests, and specific needs. One approach is to create music: humming a nostalgic tune from one’s childhood, singing as part of a choir, or improvising on instruments such as the drums, piano, guitar, or chimes. If the client is able to discuss the experience, a therapist might ask what memories the sounds provoke or what they’re feeling. The therapist and client might listen to a song together and discuss the emotions and memories the song elicits. Or the client might write a song, which can illuminate a character or conflict in their lives or provide a cathartic release. The therapist may engage the client in breathing exercises, with or without music, to release tension and calm anxiety. All of these exercises allow the therapist and client to explore the psychological, familial, social, cultural, and spiritual components of the person’s inner world. Music therapy fundamentally employs music as a tool for reflection and communication.

    How it Works: Music therapy can help patients cope with emotional trauma and physical pain, or feel more confident, joyful, and connected. Music can stir emotion, prompt discussion, facilitate expression, and lower stress. Even when dementia or brain damage strikes, music therapy can still be effective, as music is processed and produced through a different pathway than verbal speech. Bypassing this pathway allows patients to express themselves, communicate with loved ones, and experience the world more vibrantly.

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11. #11Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)

    Keys: Neuro-Linguistic Programming, NLP

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    Overview: Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a set of principles and techniques aimed at enhancing self-awareness, increasing confidence, building communication skills, and motivating positive social actions. Therapists who practice NLP often start by building a rapport with their client, mirroring the client’s verbal and nonverbal behavior to create empathy and connection. The therapist will gather information about the client’s objectives and identify problem areas to work on. Along the way, the therapist may correct any language that leads to negative thinking and faulty communication. NLP-based therapy will conclude with a plan for how the client can continue to integrate the positive behavioral changes into their daily life.

    When it is Used: NLP may be helpful in treating anxiety, depression, fears and phobias, poor self-esteem, weight management, substance misuse, stress, and PSTD.

    What to Expect: Based on their sensory experiences, people develop their own Preferred Representational System (PRS), which is their unique way of viewing the world. Therapists may employ NLP techniques to identify their client’s specific PRS and adjust their communication style and therapeutic goals accordingly.

    NLP Techniques Anchoring: In anchoring, the therapist focuses on helping the client associate an external or internal trigger with a healthier response until it becomes automatic. Belief Changing: In belief changing, the therapist focuses on helping the client replace negative thoughts or beliefs with constructive thoughts and beliefs that help the client to achieve their goals. Reframing: In reframing, the therapist focuses on helping the client see the situation in a different context in order to elicit an adaptive reaction, so that the client avoids following the same maladaptive behavioral patterns. Visualization: In visualization, the therapist encourages the client to form a mental image of what the client wants. Visual-kinesthetic Dissociation: In visual-kinesthetic dissociation, the therapist guides the client in relieving past trauma by evoking an imaginative and out-of-body experience.

    How it Works: Neuro-linguistic programming is intended to help clients understand their own minds and how they come to think and behave the way they do. With the aid of NLP techniques, clients can learn to manage their moods and emotions and 'reprogram' the way they process information. At the same time, NLP is designed to help clients see why they have been successful in the past and determine how they can most easily and efficiently repeat that success in other areas of their lives. NLP therapists believe that their clients have the answers to their problems within themselves, and it is simply a matter of the therapist helping them to draw out those answers.

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12. #12Play Therapy

    Keys: Play Therapy

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    Overview: Play therapy focuses on understanding children and their needs by observing their play, and helping solve problems through play. Play therapy takes place in a comfortable playroom where few rules are imposed on a child, allowing the child free and spontaneous expression of feelings. The therapist, schooled in child psychology, usually has an array of toys that children can use to act out their feelings. In addition, the therapist may ask children questions about the toys they’re using that reveal hidden worries and concerns. Play therapists pay special attention to the child’s choice of play objects, the types of play the child engages in, and well as the style of play. In addition, the therapist and child set up a trusting relationship between them that has therapeutic value. Through play therapy, children learn to express their thoughts and feelings in appropriate ways, learn about the feelings of others, learn ways of controlling their own behavior, and learn how to solve problems they encounter.

    When it is Used: Play therapy is typically targeted to children ages 3 to 11 who have social, emotional, or behavioral difficulties. It can be helpful for children who are in distress, who have experienced a dramatic upset or trauma, who are facing serious medical procedures or struggling with chronic illness, who have been physically or emotionally abused, or who have been bullied. Play therapy or its techniques can also be used with adults under cognitive behavioural therapy, along with creative writing, music, or art.

    What to Expect: The play therapist begins by conducting an interview with the child's parents to gather information about the child, and learn about what the presenting problem is. The play therapist may then interview the child separately and watch the child play on their own. Observation of the parent-child interaction can provide the therapist with information about the parent-child relationship, the nature of the child's attachment to their parents, and how well the child and parents manage separation. The play therapist can learn more about the child through observing how the child interacts with objects in the playroom. A child may be given access to trucks and phones and other toys, to drawing and painting materials, to dolls and action figures, to puppets, to stuffed animals, to masks and costumes, to sand play, and more. A child may be asked to tell a story about their family through the use of puppets. Or a child may be given a magic wand and asked to make a few wishes. Sometimes play therapy is more directed, and a play therapist might engage with the child in a play situation. For example, the therapist and child might role-play an experience the child finds overwhelmingly stressful, such as the first day of school, allowing the child to express their anxieties while discovering that their worst fears do not materialize. During the role-play, the child might be asked to play out a variety of scenarios and to come up with ideas for making them turn out as they wish. Or the therapist may construct play activities the therapist believes will help a child heal from emotional injuries. As a play partner, the therapist can help children with social or emotional deficits learn to communicate and interact more skillfully.

    How it Works: Play therapy is used to understand what is on a child’s mind because play is children’s natural medium of expression. While play therapy, like all therapy, is conducted by way of appointment, few rules may be imposed on the child’s play, and it is the choice of play objects and how they are used that often provide clues to (1) a child’s developmental level, (2) their family and social relationships, (3) the difficulties they are experiencing in life, and (4) their inner world. Unlike many other forms of therapy, play therapy is directed by the child. Yet children typically draw or play out scenarios that mirror problems in their real lives. The play therapist might engage in a narrative that articulates and interprets the inner experience of the child. The freedom to direct the therapy helps children in many additional ways: It communicates complete acceptance, it helps children discover themselves, it helps them develop a sense of self-mastery, and it is a stimulus to learning new ways of behaving. Both directive play and nondirective play have their uses. Play therapists may use both approaches depending on the circumstances.

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13. #13Somatic Therapy

    Keys: Somatic Therapy

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    Overview: Somatic therapy is a form of body-centered therapy that looks at the connection of mind and body and uses both psychotherapy and physical therapies for holistic healing. In addition to talk therapy, somatic therapists use mind-body exercises and other physical techniques to help release the pent-up tension that negatively affects a patient’s physical and emotional well-being. Somatic therapy holds that the mind and body are intimately connected, and bodywork can help where talk therapy has reached its limits. Somatic therapy may draw on Somatics, Somatic Experiencing, the Hakomi Method, and Sensorimotor Therapy. Ultimately, what underlies somatic therapy is the belief that the body can manifest mental unease, and can also help to heal it.

    When it is Used: Somatic therapy can help clients suffering from trauma and PTSD, stress, anxiety, depression, grief, addiction, and sexual dysfunction.

    What to Expect: Somatic therapy combines mindfulness, talk therapy, and physical therapy. The somatic therapist helps the client to focus on their body as memories of traumatic experiences are recalled. Attention is then paid to any physical responses the client has when the emotion is experienced or when the memory is recovered. Treatment techniques for syptoms include deep breathing, relaxation exercises, meditation.

    Somatic Therapy Concepts: Somatics: Somatics theorizes that a cause of chronic pain for clients is due to sensory motor amnesia, which occurs when neurons in the brain have lost their ability to properly control muscle tissue. Through education, mindfulness, and vigorous, intentional movements similar to physical therapy, a client can reinvigorate their mind-body pathways and relieve chronic pain. Somatic Experiencing: Somatic Experiencing theorizes that when humans experience trauma, they can become trapped in the 'freeze' part of the 'fight, flight, or freeze' response. As a result, clients can remain frozen in many parts of life as a reaction to traumatic experiences, and these fronzen parts accumulate energy but expend it in ways that are harmful to clients, such as stress and anxiety. The goal of Somatic Experiencing is thus to redirect this energy accumulated in healthier directions. Hakomi Method: The Hakomi Method emphasizes the physical nature of how clients live in their bodies. It relies on deep and sustained mindfulness. Sensorimotor Therapy: Sensorimotor Therapy draws upon the fundamentals of the Hakomi Method as well as cognitive-behavioral therapy and neuroscience.

    Somatic Therapy Techniques: Physical Awareness: A key part of Somatic Therapy is helping the client achieve physical awareness. A therapist might help the patient get into a mindful state by asking them to notice certain things: If they are upset, what is it in their body that tells them they are upset? Is it a tightening in the stomach? Or a dark feeling in the chest? Then the therapist asks the client to focus on those sensations, and by observing the client’s gestures and postures, find out what movement the client would have liked to have made, but couldn’t. Centering: Centering involves helping the client develop a calm home base in their body. This is achieved through the somatic therapist helping the client build awareness of the client's muscles, breath, and mood. Through slowing down their breathing, clients are better able to feel wht is going around them and inside them. Bodywork: Bodywork involves the somatic therapist working with the motion of a client's body or face. It can also involve the therapist manipulating the client's tissue or teaching the client breathing patterns and guided meditation.

    How it Works: Somatic therapy emphasizes helping clients develop resources within themselves in order to self-regulate their emotions, or to move out of the fight/flight/freeze response and towards a higher-functioning mode where they can think more clearly. Through developing awareness of the mind-body connection and using specific interventions, somatic therapy helps to release the tension, anger, frustration, and other emotions that remain in a client’s body from these past negative experiences. The goal is to help free the client from what is preventing them from fully engaging in their lives. Physical Awareness, Centering, and Bodywork are somatic therapy techniques that can be used during somatic therapy sessions.

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14. #14Transpersonal Therapy

    Keys: Transpersonal Therapy

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    Overview: Transpersonal therapy addresses the mental, physical, social, emotional, creative, and intellectual needs of a client with an emphasis on the role of a healthy spirit in healing. Transpersonal therapy integrates spiritual traditions and rituals into modern psychology and focuses on a broader conception of how a client achieves meaning, purpose, and happiness.

    When it is Used: Transpersonal therapy can be helpful for clients with anxiety, depression, addictions, or phobias. It can also be useful for clients that are open to exploring their spirituality, who are more spiritually aware, or who are having trouble finding meaning in their life.

    What to Expect: Transpersonal therapists aim to aid clients in transcending their current view of themselves, and to open their minds to new ways of approaching the challenges in their lives. Transpersonal therapists use a variety of approaches, some taken from Eastern traditions and others from Western psychology, to help clients explore their spiritual self and create meaning in their life. These include meditation, guided visualization, hypnotherapy, dream work, art making, music therapy, journaling, or holotropic breathwork.

    How it Works: To facilitate healing and growth, transpersonal therapy places great emphasis on honesty, open-mindedness, and self-awareness on the part of the therapist as well as the client. A transpersonal therapist may draw from a variety of different religions and spiritual practices for tools and methods that can help the client explore areas of their consciousness not typically accessed, and use the client's spirituality to guide them through troubled times.

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15. #15Attachment-Based Therapy

    Keys: Attachment-Based Therapy

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    Overview: An attachment-based approach to therapy looks at the connection between an infant’s early attachment experiences with primary caregivers, usually with parents, and the infant’s ability to develop normally and ultimately form healthy emotional and physical relationships as an adult. Attachment-based therapy aims to build or rebuild a trusting, supportive relationship that will help prevent or treat mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.

    When it is Used: An attachment-based approach can be used in individual, family, couple, and group therapy, with both children and adults, to help clients mend or recover from fractured family relationships.

    What to Expect: Since the goal of attachment-based therapy extends to repairing the family relationship, the therapist will work with the individual adolescent client alone, and also with the family as a group. The therapist works with the family to build and strengthen the parent-child bond and help the child to develop into an independent, self-sufficient adult. With individual adults, the therapist aims to help the client overcome the effects of negative early attachment difficulties by establishing a secure bond between the client and the therapist. Once this relationship is solidified, the therapist can help the client communicate more openly and better explore and understand how their current feelings and behaviors are associated with earlier experiences.

    How it Works: It is believed that strong early attachment led to safety, security, and support, which then led children to develop healthy connections with others. Without a healthy foundation, babies may grow to be fearful, confused, and insecure, ultimately becoming depressed or even suicidal as adolescents. Theoretically, by forming a trusting relationship with parental figures or with the therapist, the client is better prepared to form strong bonds in other relationships. To do so, patients may explore their childhood in therapy. They may discuss their early relationship with their parent or caregiver, family dynamics as they grew up, and significant childhood experiences. They may explore connections between their childhood relationships and their adult relationships—how the past may have influenced the present. They may discuss skills to improve their current relationships, emotions, and behaviors. And they may work with their family members to improve together.

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16. #16Couples Therapy

    Keys: Couples Therapy

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    Overview: Couples therapy is a type of therapy that aims to help romantic partners address relationship conflicts, improve communication, and increase affection and empathy for one another. Couples therapists may employ techniques from a variety of modalities, including emotionally focused therapy, the Gottman Method, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for couples, Imago relationship therapy, and others.

    When it is Used: Partners who seek couples therapy do so for a wide variety of reasons; often, these include communication challenges; frequent or intense conflicts; persistent disagreements about finances, child-rearing, the division of labor, or other quotidian concerns; or challenges related to sex and intimacy. Infidelity by one or both partners can also lead a couple to seek therapy. Many couples on the verge of splitting up seek therapy, either to determine whether the relationship can be saved or to navigate the breakup in the healthiest, least destructive way possible; the latter approach may be especially valuable for couples with children who wish to co-parent effectively. Entering couples therapy does not mean a couple is destined to break up, though couples may determine over the course of therapy that a peaceful dissolution would be best for both parties. Couples therapy may also be beneficial if one or both partners suffer from physical health problems, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, PTSD, or related challenges, as these issues can disrupt connection or drive a wedge between partners. In such cases, the affected partner(s) may also pursue individual therapy.

    What to Expect: Couples can expect to each spend time sharing their concerns, identifying the emotions they feel toward their partner and toward the relationship, exploring personal history (both the individual partners’ personal history and their shared history as a couple), and learning skills—such as anger management techniques, conflict resolution, and joint problem-solving skills—that can help them approach challenges more effectively going forward. It's common for one or both partners to have some desire to “win” at therapy—that is, they want the therapist to agree with them, take their side, and designate the other partner as the cause of the couple’s problems. This is, however, an unrealistic expectation. A competent, ethical couples therapist will not take sides, and their job is not to declare one partner guilty and the other innocent. Instead, the therapist will assist both partners in understanding how they may be contributing to the couple’s larger issues and encourage them to see things from their partner’s point of view.

    How it Works: Effective couples therapy, then, will guide partners through this challenging but often deeply rewarding process. The therapist, as an impartial third party, can help couples identify patterns that are keeping them stuck, and the “neutral” space of the therapy room can be a safe haven for each partner to express their emotions, hopes, and fears. Ideally, this process will promote greater compassion—both for one’s partner and for oneself—and help the couple learn more productive ways of managing conflict and navigating problems as they arise.

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17. #17Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)

    Keys: Emotionally Focused Therapy, EFT

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    Overview: Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is a form of short-term therapy that aims to improve couple relationships by rekindling the physical and emotional bond that can get sacrificed to disappointment in a partner and alienation from them, a common dynamic in distressed couples. Drawing on research supporting attachment theory, the therapy regards the security of partner connection as the best lever for change in a dysfunctional relationship and a necessary source of both couple and individual growth. Love, in short, is transformative. Restoration of the emotional ties enables partners to be physically and psychologically open and responsive to each other so that they can construct a mutually supportive and satisfying relationship in the moment and for the future. EFT operates on the evidence that emotions are not accessories to human experience but organizing principles of our lives. The expression of longing and sadness over isolation is a powerful tool for eliciting the lost contact and responsiveness of a partner. Once that contact is restored, it becomes a renewable source of mutual comfort, a buffer against life’s many stresses. Couples can then go on to solve their own problems.

    When it is Used: EFT is especially useful when couples arrive at counseling in emotional distress or feel so alienated they may believe that the relationship is irreparable. They may be displaying intense anger, fear, grief, loss of trust, or a sense of betrayal in their relationship. Such strong negative emotions are thought to be expressions of protest and despair over the loss of connection and the resulting feelings of physical and emotional abandonment. They are also believed to conceal feelings of fear, helplessness, and unlovability that result when bonds are ruptured. It is also useful for couples and individuals who have difficulty expressing emotions or who believe that doing so is a sign of weakness. At the other extreme, EFT is of help to those who have trouble regulating emotions; their intense reactivity is believed to result from emotional alarms set off by fears of abandonment. In individual therapy, the therapist forms a secure alliance with the patient that becomes a safe haven for emotional exploration and expression. EFT has many other applications because it directly targets the emotional isolation believed to be at the core of so many forms of mental distress. For example, the fears of loss and disconnection it addresses are thought to underlie many instances of depression and anxiety and experiences of trauma. The therapy is also used to repair family bonds in instances where parent-child relationships have become troubled.

    What to Expect: After taking a history from the couple, the therapist will observe their interaction patterns. Couples will be asked to identify their most pressing issues. Through observation, listening, and questioning, the therapist comes to understand the unspoken fears and insecurities that underlie negative interaction patterns. The first several sessions are typically devoted to de-escalating the emotional reactivity and distress couples experience, especially if their life outside the therapy office. Couples learn to expand their emotional response patterns so that they can recognize and be responsive to their partner’s needs. The second stage of therapy is devoted to restoring a deep emotional bond between partners. The goal is to create a sense of security that allows partners to share their vulnerabilities, provide comfort for each other, and serve as a secure base for exploration of the world and individual and partnership growth. An EFT therapist is not just an observer but an active participant in the therapy. A very important part of the therapy is reframing such distancing behavior as anger or withdrawal not as pathology but as misguided bids for connection. That allows partners to express their deep feelings for each other and what they need from their partner. The last few sessions consolidate the gains made in the previous sessions. For example, with their mutual support system now restored, couples are typically asked to discuss an old or ongoing problem so that they can develop new solutions. Patients get to practice comforting and connecting rather than disconnecting in the face of difficulty, as they understand the true emotional needs that formerly drove their negative patterns.

    How it Works: Emotionally Focused Therapy puts emotional experiences and reactions front and center in therapy. It is based on attachment theory and the importance it places on connection to others as a source of feelings of comfort and safety and a vehicle for growth and development. Those others may be flesh-and-blood partners, the mental representations the client has of important figures in their lives, or even parts of themselves. EFT explores the nature of our connections and the emotions they generate. It also helps people actively restructure those relationships so that they pave the way for new, more rewarding experiences. For all its roots in attachment theory, EFT works very much with the reality of existing relationships and the emotions they generate. Patients come to understand how their negative interaction patterns are typically related to attachment-related fears of loss. Under the direction of the therapist, they learn to openly discuss their fears, identify the attachment needs that their fears mask, and instead of distancing themselves, use their vulnerabilities to seek closeness. From that position, they can readily solve life’s problems together.

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18. #18Family Systems Therapy

    Keys: Family Systems Therapy

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    Overview: Family systems therapy is a form of psychotherapy that helps individuals resolve their problems in the context of their family units, where many problems are likely to begin. Each family member works together with the others to better understand their group dynamic and how their individual actions affect each other and the family unit as a whole. One of the most important premises of family systems therapy is that what happens to one member of a family happens to everyone in the family.

    When it is Used: Many psychological difficulties begin early in life and stem from relationships within the family of origin, or the family one grows up in, even though these problems often surface later in life. Families in conflict, as well as couples and individuals with concerns related to their families of origin, can benefit from family systems therapy. In addition to family conflict, Family Systems Therapy can be useful for depression, anxiety, personality disorders, eating disorders, substance abuse, and more.

    What to Expect: Eight key principles underpin Family Systems Therapy. This therapeutic approach focuses on helping families recognize these eight principles in their own family relationships to support development of healthier relationships.

    Principles of Family Systems Therapy:

    1. The Differentiation of Self: The sense of individuality a person develops, rather than relying on others in their family or social groups)
    2. The Triangle: The relationship dynamic between three people, which may influence relationships with others in the family
    3. The Nuclear Family Emotional Process: Relational patterns that occur in the family, including marital conflict, dysfunction in a spouse, impairment of one or more children, and emotional distance.
    4. The Family Projection Process: Parents may displace their feelings or anxieties onto their children, who then may displace their own feelings or anxieties onto others.
    5. The Multi-Generational Transmission Process: Small differences in differentiation between children and parents can lead to large differences among extended family members over time.
    6. Sibling Positions: Birth order can affect the dynamics between children, siblings, and parents.
    7. The Emotional Cutoff: Family conflict with no resolution may lead some people to sever a relationship entirely.
    8. Emotional Processes in Society: Broader social and cultural forces can influence family relationships.

    How it Works: Based on family patterns and systems theory, which looks at the parts of a system (such as individual family members) in relation to the whole (the family), it is believed that the personalities, emotions, and behaviors of individuals are a result of their birth order, their role within their family of origin and the coping mechanisms they have developed for dealing with emotional family difficulties. To understand the family system, the family must be viewed as a whole, and that what defines a family is more than the people who make it up but also how they interact with each other to create a unique family dynamic. During family systems therapy, the family works individually and together to resolve a problem that directly affects one or more family members. Each family member has the opportunity to express their thoughts and feelings about how they are affected. Together, the family works to help the individual in distress and to help relieve the strain on the family. Family members explore their individual roles within the family, learn how to switch roles, if necessary, and learn ways to support and help each other with the goal of restoring family relationships and rebuilding a healthy family system.

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19. #19Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT)

    Keys: Interpersonal Psychotherapy, IPT

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    Overview: Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) is a focused therapeutic approach to treat mood disorders. The main goal of IPT is to improve the quality of a client’s interpersonal relationships and social functioning. It also aims to help reduce overall distress. IPT differs from other traditional psychodynamic approaches in that it examines current rather than past relationships, and recognizes (without focusing on) internal conflicts. IPT differs from cognitive and behavioral therapy approaches because IPT addresses maladaptive thoughts and behaviors only as they apply to interpersonal relationships. IPT aims to change relationship patterns rather than the associated depressive symptoms. IPT also seeks to target relationship difficulties that exacerbate depressive symptoms. IPT is less directive than cognitive-behavioral approaches as IPT focuses on the client’s specified target areas without dwelling on the client's personality traits. IPT can also be used to treat major depressive disorder as well as other mood-related conditions.

    When it is Used: IPT provides strategies to resolve problems in four key areas: Interpersonal deficits (e.g. social isolation, unfulfilling relationships), Unresolved grief (e.g. if the distress or depression is linked to the death of a loved one), Difficult life transitions (e.g. retirement, divorce, moving), and Interpersonal disputes(e.g. conflicting expectations between partners, family members, friends, or colleagues).

    What to Expect: The IPT therapist will begin by assessing the client's depressive symptoms and asking the client about their social history and close relationships, including any changes in relationship patterns and expectations. The IPT therapist then works with the patient to implement treatment strategies specific to identified problem areas.

    How it Works: It is believed that changes in the client's social environment is a key factor in the onset of depression as well as continued depression.

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20. #20Relational Therapy

    Keys: Relational Therapy

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    Overview: Relational therapy, sometimes referred to as relational-cultural therapy, is a therapeutic approach based on the idea that mutually satisfying relationships with others are necessary for one’s emotional well-being. This type of psychotherapy takes into account the ways in which social and familial factors relate to the relationships in a person’s life. Relational therapy integrates cognitive-behavioral therapy, which is goal-oriented, focuses on faulty thinking, and promotes self-awareness and healthy behaviors. These principles are taught to the client for them to apply to your daily interactions with others. Relational Therapy also draws upon principles of other therapies approaches such as psychoanalytic and psychodynamic therapy.

    When it is Used: Relational Therapy can help clients experiencing distress from their relationships. Clients experiencing relationship problems from disorders or issues such as anxiety, depression, stress, addictions, low self-esteem, poor body image, trauma, or personality disorders may also benefit.

    What to Expect: In relational therapy, the client learns to identify how they may be pushing people away rather than attracting them. The client also learns how these behaviors may be related to past experiences. The goal of Relational Therapy is to help the client develop new ideas and thinking patterns about relationships, build a strong relationship with the therapist, and use both the new ideas and the therapeutic relationship as a model to create healthier, longer-lasting relationships with the people around them.

    How it Works: Relational therapy aims to build the client’s (1) sense of self, (2) sense of agency, (3) patience with others, and (4) trust in others. The client will learn about boundaries, compromise, and healthy balance in relationships. Through helping the client to strengthen their relationships, the client can then experience a more fulfilling life and improvements in overall well-being.

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21. #21Social Recovery Therapy (SRT)

    Keys: Social Recovery Therapy, SRT

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    Overview: Social Recovery Therapy (SRT) is a cognitive-behavioral intervention designed to help restore a more capable mental state to clients with psychosis by improving social and vocational skills and encouraging more participation in social activities. SRT focuses on identifying the client’s social and/or occupational goals and the obstacles to achieving them, then uses behavioral and cognitive strategies to help clients overcome avoidance and develop a sense of hope about their future.

    When it is Used: SRT can be helpful for clients who struggle with social disability (isolation, withdrawal, difficulties communicating, and/or a reluctance to engage in structured activities or seek support) during or after an episode of psychosis.

    What to Expect: Social Recovery Therapy (SRT) rests in large part on a therapeutic relationship that is supportive, hopeful, and flexible. The SRT therapist should “walk alongside” the client by being encouraging, persistent, and assertive in helping the client to overcome their social challenges. Once a baseline level of trust is established, the client and SRT therapist work closely together to (1) identify challenges and obstacles to social functioning, (2) establish social goals and expectations, and (3) match those goals to relevant agencies and activities. This could include referrals to vocational counselors, participation in educational groups, or seeking out and joining community centers that host sports and other social activities. Successfully engaging in these activities and navigating problems as they arise can help clients develop a sense of agency and promote optimism about their ability to function in the world. In addition to helping clients adjust to work, education, and leisure activities by learning and practicing necessary skills in a safe environment, SRT aims to ease any feelings of anxiety or hopelessness that may interfere with social success. To this end, SRT therapists will help clients identify and connect with their values and recognize how reaching their social and occupational goals could help them better align with those values.

    Overview of Psychosis: Psychosis is a broad term describing some loss of contact with reality. While it can have various causes, it is often associated with schizophrenia, a serious mental disorder that can have lasting, negative consequences. Despite recent advances in treatment, full recovery from schizophrenia remains difficult for many to attain. While many clients do receive early intervention services (which, in some cases, can promote significant gains), some struggle to adhere to conventional interventions (sometimes because of unpleasant medication side effects or difficulty finding and affording care). Others may continue to have difficulty with social functioning even as they see improvement in other symptoms.

    Consequences of Psychosis: These early social difficulties often lead to long-term issues of isolation, alienation, or even a complete lack of integration into the community. Because motivation to change tends to be highest in the early stages of diagnosis, proponents of SRT suggest that intervening during the first episode of psychosis, and focusing on social functioning specifically, is critical for preventing the early social decline associated with a poor long-term prognosis.

    How it Works: The goal of SRT is to help clients increase the amount of time they spend actively involved in social settings so that they can thrive, rather than merely survive as 'outsiders', in their community. This helps prevent long-term social disability and the development of schizophrenia or other related psychiatric disorders.

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22. #22Structural Family Therapy (SFT)

    Keys: Structural Family Therapy, SFT

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    Overview: Structural family therapy is a type of therapy that focuses on the interactions between family members. Looking at the family as a system, structural family therapists work to improve communication between members of the family and encourage adjustments in the rules that govern how the family functions (its structure). The treatment’s distinctive features are the conception of the family as a structural system, and the active engagement of the therapist in the process of restructuring the way the system works in order to adjust elements that cause dysfunction. This restructuring can include family boundaries, hierarchies of power, and reactions by family members to major life changes. Structural Family Therapy allows everyone in the family to hear the viewpoint of the others, and allows the therapist to observe how the family interacts in real life.

    When it is Used: Structural Family Therapy is often used to help families experiencing distress or tension, such as mood disorders in adolescent, substance abuse, eating disorders, divorce, blending families, families affected by illness of death, families where a parent suffers from a mental health condition, or significant changes in family life arising from loss of a job, moving cities, or a change in gender identity or sexual orientation of a family member.

    What to Expect: In Structural Family Therapy, the therapist actively participates in treatment through making suggestions and directing discussions or arguments. Therapists may, at times, change the format of sessions, by changing the position of family members seated in the room, asking some family members to leave the session temporarily while others stay, and even, in some cases, by bringing some members of the family on the other side of a one-way mirror to observe the conversation of other members of the family.

    Key Tenets of Structural Family Therapy: Joining: Joining is a process whereby the therapist gets to know the family and sets expectations for treatment. A therapist may ask questions about the family, show their support of the family, and explain the technique of the therapy. Mapping: Mapping is an effort to understand a family’s rules, structures, and patterns. A therapist may draw a diagram and write notes themselves, or may hand members of the family a pencil and paper and ask them to map these functions of the family themselves. Unbalancing: Unbalancing is the act of the therapist challenging family members. It is not meant to be confrontational, but to push family members to reconsider their perception of how the family operates. Reframing: Reframing is a method by which the therapist will present the family’s challenges or complaints. Therapists will often reframe the problem of an individual in the family as a problem that may be a result of the structure and patterns of family dynamics. Enactment: Enactment is the plan for the future. Once the family’s structure has been observed and examined, the therapist, with input from the family, will introduce ideas and practices for the family to execute.

    How it Works: The fundamental goal of Structural Family Therapy is to help a family reorganize the way its members interact with each other in order to work more happily and cohesively as a unit and be able to adapt to stressors that may pop up in the course of life. Therapists may recommend to parents alter their behavior towards their children depending on whether the children need more independence or more support and guidance. They may suggest strategies to parents or other caregivers that highlight the need to present a united front. Ultimately, the objective of the approach is to strengthen the family as a system.

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23. #23Gottman Method

    Keys: Gottman Method

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    Overview: The Gottman Method for Healthy Relationships is a form of couples-based therapy and education. A major tenet of the Gottman Method is that couples require five times more positive interactions than negative interactions. This is because negative interactions and emotions (e.g. defensiveness and contempt) hurt a relationship more than positive ones heal. As a result, the therapy focuses on developing the skills and understanding necessary for partners to maintain fondness and admiration, turn toward each other to get their needs met, and manage conflict. It also focuses on how couples can react and repair relations when they do hurt each other. Based on a couple's patterns of interacting, the Gottman Method also teaches couples how to implement relationship-building and problem-solving skills together.

    When it is Used: The Gottman Method can be helpful for couples who are stuck in chronic conflict, coping with infidelity, struggling with communication, in a stagnant relationship, emotionally distanced from each other, or facing difficulties over specific issues such as money, parenting, and sex.

    What to Expect: The therapist first provides couples an overview of the Gottman Method before each partner shares their history, relationship philosophy, and goals for treatment with the therapist. The therapist also conducts a thorough inspection of the relationship, including discussing a topic in which the couple disagrees on. The couple is educated on components of healthy relationships, and reminded of their fondness and respect which first brought them together. Direct coaching on interaction skills and developing trust is also provided, following components of a healthy relationship in what is called the 'Sound Relationship House' model.

    Components of a Healthy Relationship in the 'Sound Relationship House' model: Building Love Maps: This involves the therapist helping the couple know each other's inner worlds - their hopes, dreams, worries, stressors, and desires. Sharing Fondness and Admiration: This involves the therapist helping the couple focus on the respect and tenderness they have for each other. It works well when contempt exists in the relationship. Turning Towards instead of Away: This involves the therapist helping the couple to be aware of each other and responding when they sense their partner needs something emotionally. The Positive Perspective: This involves the therapist helping the couple to adopt a positive attitude when approaching relationship problems and repairing relationship failures. Managing Conflict: This involves the therapist helping the couple realize that while some relationship conflicts can be resolved, others must simply be managed, and can be managed well. Making Life Dreams Come True: This involves the therapist helping the couple create an atmosphere that encourages each other to talk honestly about their hopes, values, convictions, and aspirations. Creating Shared Meaning: This involves the therapist helping the couple understand important narratives, myths, and metaphors that may exist in their relationship. Trust: This involves the therapist helping the couple to know what each other thinks, and acting in the best interests of each other. Commitment: This involves the therapist helping the couple to develop gratitude for each other, and helping them to be committed to each other even through difficulties in life.

    How it Works: The Gottman Method recognizes that negativity has a strong impact on people's brains, and that, unless couples take steps to counteract instances of negativity, they will grow apart emotionally. The Gottman Method identifies and addresses the states of mind and behaviors shown to underlie intimacy. It also helps couples maintain a positive orientation towards each other that can sustain them through upsetting circumstances.

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24. #24Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP)

    Keys: Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy, AEDP

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    Overview: Accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy (AEDP) is a form of talk therapy that aims to help people overcome trauma, loss, or other serious emotional challenges. Drawing on attachment theory, body-focused approaches, and other related disciplines, AEDP posits that humans are wired for resilience and have an inborn ability to cope with emotional pain; however, many people who have undergone trauma are unable to access the skills that would allow them to navigate these emotional challenges. AEDP aims to help clients uncover and draw on these innate coping mechanisms to manage their trauma and move toward flourishing. During AEDP, clients work with the therapist to process painful past experiences by uncovering and experiencing difficult emotions as well as identifying and working through the defenses they’ve built over the years to manage their distress. Over time and with the therapist’s close support, clients may develop new coping skills, restore their ability to trust, and be more comfortable feeling their own emotions and more capable of conveying them to those around them.

    When it is Used: AEDP is designed to treat trauma, especially that which occurred in childhood, as well as PTSD. It may also be used to help someone manage the aftereffects of childhood neglect or being raised by distant, disinterested caregivers, which may have interfered with attachment and/or created relationship difficulties in adulthood. Trauma, loss, or attachment challenges may manifest as other symptoms such as depression, anxiety, or interpersonal challenges, all of which can be helped by AEDP.

    What to Expect: AEDP is a relatively active therapeutic modality, meaning the therapist will participate in discussions and explorations with the client. Over the first few sessions, an AEDP therapist will likely work to establish a trusting relationship with the client by being curious about their past experiences and allowing them to express painful emotions without being judged. Next, the therapist will typically help the client look deeper inward, identifying problematic defense mechanisms and exploring emotions or experiences that may have been ignored or buried for long periods of time. Along the way, the therapist will stay attuned to the client’s movements, facial cues, tone of voice, and other body language signals; at some point during sessions, therapist and client may discuss these signals themselves and what they might mean, as well as explore how it feels to share difficult emotions openly and consider one’s relationship with them (a process known as metaprocessing). Throughout, the therapist will work to “undo aloneness,” or the painful feeling many trauma survivors experience that they are alone with their overwhelming emotions. Ideally, clients will feel deeply seen and understood by their therapist, strengthening their ability to trust others or express emotions without fear that they will be received negatively.

    How it Works: Trauma or other painful emotional experiences can lead someone to experience overwhelming emotions in 'utter aloneness', and undoing that aloneness, through a supportive and encouraging relationship with one’s therapist, is seen believed to be key to healing. As this relationship is forming and has been solidified, the client will feel supported and understood, ideally gaining confidence and becoming more willing to explore their emotional experience. While it can certainly be difficult at times, this exploration is not intended to be entirely unpleasant; indeed, AEDP therapists often look for moments of joy during sessions and encourage the client to sit with them and focus on their accompanying sensations. AEDP therapists maintain that this process will lead to further positive experiences and personal discoveries that are necessary for the individual to flourish. AEDP draws on theories of emotion processing and the idea of neuroplasticity to argue that creating and nourishing positive emotional experiences will lead to changes in the brain that bolster psychological resilience.

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25. #25Adlerian Therapy

    Keys: Adlerian Therapy

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    Overview: Adlerian therapy, also called individual psychology, is a short-term, goal-oriented, and positive psychodynamic therapy. It is believed that feelings of inferiority can result in neurotic behavior but, in the right setting, can also be used as motivation to strive for greater success. Adlerian therapy focuses on the development of individual personality while understanding and accepting the interconnectedness of all humans.

    When it is Used: Adlerian therapy is an evidence-based approach that can be applied successfully in the treatment of any type of psychological disorder or mental illness.

    What to Expect: Adlerian therapy proceeds in four stages: Engagement, Assessment, Insight, and Reorientation. Stage 1 - Engagement: Engagement involves developing the relationship between client and therapist. This therapist is supportive, encouraging, and empathetic, which helps to forge a collaborative partnership. The pair works together to address the client’s difficulties. Stage 2 - Assessment: Assessment involves learning about the client’s past to understand their present challenges. Adlerian therapy emphasizes the influence of birth order and early childhood memories, but the therapist may also seek to understand the client’s family dynamics, important past experiences, and the nature and origins of various patterns of thought. Stage 3 - Insight: After learning more about the client, insight involves uncovering why the client acts the way they do and helping the client to see themselves and their circumstances differently. The therapist asks questions to explore the client’s perspective and guides them toward greater awareness and understanding. The therapist may offer their own interpretations about how the client’s past may inform their present, and what may be causing unhelpful or dysfunctional tendencies. Stage 4 - Reorientation: Reorientation involves change. The therapist helps the client develop new ways of thinking and active strategies to use outside of therapy that encourage more flexible and adaptive ways of thinking and that reinforce the new insights gained in session. Overall, the focus is on reframing the attitudes, beliefs, and lifestyle choices that block success, so that clients are more effective at reaching their desired goals.

    How it Works: One of the core tenets of Adlerian therapy is that individual behavior must be explored within the context of a client’s sense of “fitting in” with their community, and society at large. In some cases, this extends to birth order and how one’s role within the family affects the development of one’s personality and future relationships. Adlerian therapists often work in schools, clinics, corporations, and other community settings, helping to create learning environments that provide a sense of belonging and respect for all. These therapists work especially with those people who are most in need of positive, future-oriented counseling and encouragement.

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26. #26Imago Therapy

    Keys: Imago Therapy

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    Overview: Imago relationship therapy is a form of couples counseling and coaching designed to help relationship partners work out misunderstandings, reduce conflict, and rediscover ways to bond, communicate, and generally find common ground. A primary goal of the Imago approach is to help partners stop blaming, criticizing, and negatively reacting to each other and instead become more understanding and empathetic. Imago therapy is derived from the theory that feelings the client experienced in their childhood relationships are bound to resurface in their adult relationships. The term Imago is from the Latin word for “image,” and refers to an “unconscious image of familiar love,” developed in childhood, and remaining as yet unchanged in adulthood. As clients address these childhood relationships, they come to recognize their personal imago as “the image of the person who can make me whole again.” Much of the work that takes place in Imago workshops and private therapy sessions involves learning to recognize how early childhood relationship experiences have affected how the client relates, behaves, and responds within committed relationships. Imago therapists see conflict between partners as the result of their circumstances and believe that, through examination of the conflict, the couple can not only find a solution, but heal themselves and achieve personal growth.

    When it is Used: Couples dealing with communication struggles, consistent conflict, intimacy challenges, and trust issues may want to work with an Imago therapist, and couples that are not in crisis may also benefit by learning how to manage conflict and enhance their dynamics. For couples experiencing frequent disputes in particular, the Imago approach, which perceives conflict as an opportunity for growth, may be beneficial. Imago relationship therapy can benefit partners trying to become closer or to bolster their relationship, as well as individuals who need to develop stronger communication skills to improve their relationships in general. Individuals hoping to find ways to make better choices in their dating life and gain perspective to help them recognize the traits they desire in future partners may find benefits in Imago therapy as well.

    What to Expect: Imago therapy is based on the idea that the client's early relationships not only shape their personalities and attachment styles, but also what could be called a 'love identity' is derived from how they were treated by important figures in childhood, and the lessons they learned about what they need to do and how they need to act to receive love from those closest to us. In adult intimate relationships, these dynamics are likely to re-emerge, as clients choose adult partners who are 'familiar' to them - in other words, with whom clients interact in similar ways as they did with significant figures from their childhoods. Recognizing these patterns is precisely what can lead clients to progress. As its founders recognize, 'People are born in relationships, people are wounded in relationships, and people can be healed in relationships.'

    Aspects of Imago Therapy: Expectations of Clients: The Imago technique is focused on 5 core principles which play out over the course of therapy. An Imago therapist is likely to ask clients to (1) re-imagine their partner as a wounded child; to (2) re-romanticize their relationship through signs of appreciation, pleasant surprises, and even gift-giving; to (3) restructure disappointments or frustrations by transforming complaints into requests and eliminating negative, hostile language from interactions; to (4) resolve lingering feelings of anger; and finally to (5) re-envision the relationship as a source of safety and happiness in their lives. What clients find most challenging about the Imago approach tends to be surrendering their self-rejection and self-hatred, and letting themselves be accepted and loved. Therapist's Role: An Imago therapist generally does not act as an authority figure who will pronounce verdicts about a couple’s relationship, but as a partner who recognizes that couples are the experts on their own relationship, who will work with them to facilitate improved communication and connection and who will help them look more closely at their interactions and potential for healing. The therapist plays an active role in facilitating the dialog between partners in a way that helps each understand how the other reacts and responds to conflict or stress, ideally enhancing empathy and reducing a recurrence of the same arguments or types of arguments. Imago Dialogue: The Imago dialogue is the core technique of the Imago therapeutic approach, in which partners ideally learn to avoid hurtful words and statements, create a safe environment for sharing, and establish a means of interacting in which each partner has equal space and power. In the Imago dialogue, partners take turns as the 'sender' (the one sharing their thoughts), and the 'receiver', who takes in those words. A key step for the receiver is 'mirroring' (paraphrasing what their partner has just said, nonjudgmentally and without a response or rebuttal). For example, the receiver may paraphrase what they have heard by framing it as “What I’m hearing you say is…” The receiver next will be asked to validate their partner’s statements, letting the other know what they understand, asking for clarification on what they do not understand, and, importantly, acknowledging their understanding of why the sender’s position makes sense, even if they do not personally agree with it. Finally, the receiver should display empathy by stating what they imagine the other is feeling as they express their take on their experience in the relationship, and showing their appreciation for it. Couples may work on the dialogue process until it becomes familiar and they can do it on their own outside of therapy sessions when facing conflicts.

    How it Works: By understanding how negative experiences and feelings from childhood carry over into adult relationships and form the client's particular imago, the client can better understand their reactions to their partner, and vice versa, and develop the skills and empathy necessary to transform themselves and their relationship. Marriage itself, as a forum for addressing old wounds and fostering healing and growth, may actually be the most effective form of therapy.

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27. #27Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy

    Keys: Internal Family Systems Therapy, IFS

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    Overview: Internal Family Systems (IFS) is an approach to psychotherapy that identifies and addresses multiple sub-personalities or families within each person’s mental system. These sub-personalities consist of wounded parts and painful emotions such as anger and shame, and parts that try to control and protect the person from the pain of the wounded parts. The sub-personalities are often in conflict with each other and with one’s Core Self (a concept that describes the confident, compassionate, whole person that is at the core of every individual). IFS focuses on healing the wounded parts and restoring mental balance and harmony by changing the dynamics that create discord among the sub-personalities and the Self.

    When it is Used: IFS is suitable for treating depression, anxiety, panic, phobias, trauma, substance abuse, and physical health conditions. It can also help to improve general functioning and well-being.

    What to Expect: The client works with the IFS therapist to identify and understand the specific sub-personalities or families that make up their internal mental system. Once these parts are identified, the therapist will help the client acknowledge their feelings about these suppressed emotions, learn how to release these feelings so that the client is freer to address the actual problem, and ultimately find more positive ways to manage conflicts on their own. The therapist may suggest certain tools to help the client do this, such as relaxation exercises, visualization, keeping a journal, and creating a chart that illustrates the relationship between the client's Self and the different parts of themselves.

    IFS Model: Parts of a Person: IFS suggests that each person has three Parts that comprise their internal mental system. Managers are protective Parts of the client that function to control the client's surroundings, and to manage the client's emotions and tasks so that they can navigate daily life. Exiles are Parts of the client that hold hurt, fear, or shame from experiences, and they carry the difficult emotions and memories associated with those experiences. These Exiles are contained and hidden from conscious awareness by Managers to avoid distress and pain. Finally, Firefighters are Parts of the client that are activated when Exiles produce overwhelming, painful, or threatening emotions. These Firefighters aim to inhibit these difficult emotions by any means necessary, even if the coping mechanisms are unhealthy. The Client's Core Self: IFS believes that every person has a Core Self, which is a genuine and undamaged Core Self that is waiting to be accessed. This Core Self can identify, observe, and help the Manager, Exiles, and Firefighters Parts of the client to be less extreme, more productive, and to coexist effectively and peacefully. The person's Core Self is believed to have many positive traits, including the eight Cs and 5 Ps. The presence of these Core traits help to identify how much of the Self is available at a given time, and how much more of the Self may need to emerge. The eight Cs are Confidence, Calmness, Creativity, Clarity, Curiosity, Courage, Compassion, and Connectedness. The five Ps are Presence, Patience, Perspective, Persistence, and Playfulness. IFS Goals: The three goals of IFS are (1) helping the client to free the Parts from their extreme roles, (2) restoring the client's trust in their Core Self, and (3) Coordinating and harmonizing the Core Self with the client's Parts, so that they can work together as a team with the Core Self in charge. Through meeting these goals, the client's Parts can be healed, transformed, and better managed by the Core Self.

    How it Works: The IFS therapist helps clients identify their parts and release the burdens that these parts carry using the six step IFS process. This involves Finding (Helping the client identify the Parts of their mind and body that need attention), Focusing (helping the client focus and pay attention to the relevant Part), Fleshing Out (fleshing out the Part by having the client describe the Part and their experience of the Part), Feeling (helping the client explore how they feel towards the Part), Befriending (helping the client develop and express curiosity towards the Part with the goal of helping the client accept the Part's presence), and Fear (helping the client ask what the Part fears, and what the client would fear if the role of the Part was changed). It is through learning to recognize and explore these Parts that the client is able to shift how their Parts function, and create positive change.

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28. #28Jungian Therapy

    Keys: Jungian Therapy

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    Overview: Jungian therapy is designed to bring together the conscious and unconscious parts of the mind to help the client feel balanced and whole. Jungian therapy calls for clients to look at their “real” self rather than the self they present to the outside world.

    When it is Used: Jungian therapy can be used to treat depression, anxiety, grief, obsessive-compulsive disorder, phobias, relationship problems, low self-esteem, and a lack of purpose or direction in life.

    What to Expect: In Jungian therapy, a client is asked to explore both their conscious and unconscious minds with the help of the therapist in order to bring into balance the areas of their personality that are misaligned and create unity between the conscious and unconscious minds. The Jungian therapist suggests several techniques for learning what the unconscious mind contains, and these may include the client exploring their 'shadow' self that has unpleasant parts of their mind, or painful previous experiences, with the aim of fully understanding what their true problems are, and how to resolve them to the greatest extent possible.

    Jungian Techniques: Dream Analysis: Dreams are interpreted as communications from the unconscious mind. Through analysis of a client's dreams, Jungian therapists believe that these messages can be interpreted and used to explain why the client is ill at ease, and which aspects of the client need to be worked on in order to bring about balance and unity. Word Association: In word association exercises, a Jungian therapist will say specific words and record how long it takes the client to respond with the first thing that comes to mind. The therapist might run through the list a second or third time, noting changes in responses and response times. Changes in responses between the tests, or anomalies in the time it takes for the client to respond, are believed to be instructive in indicating areas about which the client feels distress. Art or Dance Therapies: Jungian analysts believe that painting, drawing, and dancing are conduits through which the unconscious mind can express itself and that the exercises themselves may help repair the areas of a client’s ailments that come through their art-making.

    How it Works: Jungian therapy focuses more on the source of a problem than on its manifestations or symptoms. In Jungian therapy, it is believed that the 'shadow' self (an individual’s repressed experiences and memories), in combination with the 'collective unconscious' (the inherent hidden beliefs that everyone in a given society at a given time has) result in an imbalance between conscious awareness and the unconscious mind that has a detrimental effect on one’s emotional life. Through Jungian therapy, a client can explore these forces and influences to achieve unity between the conscious and unconscious mind. Success in this endeavor is termed 'individuation', or wholeness. It is believed that individuation represents one’s true nature, and that a client will feel satisfied and complete upon its achievement. In contrast, if the client tries simply to relieve the symptoms, it is believed that the underlying issues will not be resolved and are bound to resurface.

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29. #29Psychoanalytic Therapy

    Keys: Psychoanalytic Therapy

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    Overview: Psychoanalytic therapy is a form of in-depth talk therapy that aims to bring unconscious or deeply buried thoughts and feelings to the conscious mind so that repressed experiences and emotions, often from childhood, can be brought to the surface and examined. Working together, the therapist and client look at how these early hidden and stifled memories have affected the client’s thinking, behavior, and relationships in adulthood. The goal of psychoanalytic therapy is to help the client bring their unconscious thoughts to the forefront so that these conflicts can be resolved. Otherwise, if the buried conflict is not brought to consciousness, clients will continue to suffer neurosis and internal strife.

    When it is Used: Psychoanalytic therapy can be used for clients with mood disorders, as well as clients suffering from depression, emotional struggles, emotional trauma, low self-esteem, neurotic behavior patterns, self-destructive behavior patterns, personality disorders, identity or sexuality problems, and relationship difficulties.

    What to Expect: The therapist may use specific techniques such word association, dream analysis, and transference analysis.

    Psychoanalytic Techniques: Dream Analysis: Dream analysis uncovers repressed feelings that may be hidden in symbols that appear in the client’s dreams. The therapist helps the client discover the meaning and significance of these symbols. Word Association: In word association exercises, the client says whatever first comes to mind when the therapist says a word. The therapist then looks for and interprets patterns in the client’s responses so they can explore the meaning of these patterns together. Transference Analysis: Transference analysis explores the transfer of the client’s feelings and emotions from one person to another. For instance, the client’s repressed childhood feelings toward a parent may be transferred to a partner in an adult relationship later in life, or towards the therapist during the psychoanalytic process.

    How it Works: The therapist focuses on building a strong therapist-client relationship, as well as understanding the client's attachment styles. The therapist may then explore the client's transference, which is the client's unconscious transfer of emotions and needs from an earlier time to people and events in the present time. As the client explores their past repressed experiences, they may feel overwhelmed by the release of these painful feelings and thoughts, and seek out ways to avoid dealing with these. However, as clients become more comfortable and less resistant to facing their issues, they are better able to understand their own motives and behavior, thus allowing true healing to begin.

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30. #30Psychodynamic Therapy

    Keys: Psychodynamic Therapy

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    Overview: Less focused on the therapist-client relationship, psychodynamic therapy focuses instead on the client's relationship with their external world. It recognizes that talking about problems in a therapeutic setting can be extremely valuable for the client. Psychodynamic therapy is more focused on problem-solving and achieving outcomes compared to psychoanalysis therapy's focus on delving into issues arising from early life experiences.

    When it is Used: Psychodynamic therapy is useful for treating depression and serious psychological disorders, especially for clients who have lost meaning in their lives or have difficulty forming or maintaining personal relationships. Psychodynamic therapy can be effective in treating anxiety and relationship difficulties. Individuals who have the capacity to be self-reflective and who seek to obtain insight into themselves and their behavior are best suited for psychodynamic therapy.

    What to Expect: With help from the therapist, the client is encouraged to speak freely about anything that comes to mind, including current difficulties, fears, desires, dreams, and fantasies. The goal is to experience a remission of symptoms but also derive such benefits as increased self-worth, better use of a client’s own talents and abilities, and an improved capacity for developing and maintaining more satisfying relationships. The therapist may use specific techniques such word association, dream analysis, and transference analysis.

    Psychodynamic Techniques: Dream Analysis: Dream analysis uncovers repressed feelings that may be hidden in symbols that appear in the client’s dreams. The therapist helps the client discover the meaning and significance of these symbols. Word Association: In word association exercises, the client says whatever first comes to mind when the therapist says a word. The therapist then looks for and interprets patterns in the client’s responses so they can explore the meaning of these patterns together. Transference Analysis: Transference analysis explores the transfer of the client’s feelings and emotions from one person to another. For instance, the client’s repressed childhood feelings toward a parent may be transferred to a partner in an adult relationship later in life, or towards the therapist during the psychoanalytic process. This may reveal their own patterns of behavior and how to address them.

    How it Works: Psychodynamic therapy focus on helping the client in recognizing, acknowledging, understanding, expressing, and overcoming negative and contradictory feelings and repressed emotions. These are done with the goal of improving the client’s interpersonal experiences and relationships. These include helping the client understand how repressed emotions from the past affect current decision-making, behavior, and relationships. Psychodynamic therapy also aims to help clients who are aware of, and who understand the origins of their social difficulties, but are not able to overcome problems on their own. Clients learn to analyze and resolve their current difficulties, and to change their behavior in current relationships, through deep exploration and analysis of earlier experiences and emotions.

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31. #31Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

    Keys: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, ACT

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    Overview: Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is an action-oriented approach to psychotherapy that stems from traditional behavior therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. Clients learn to stop avoiding, denying, and struggling with their inner emotions and, instead, accept that these deeper feelings are appropriate responses to certain situations that should not prevent them from moving forward in their lives. With this understanding, clients begin to accept their hardships and commit to making necessary changes in their behavior, regardless of what is going on in their lives and how they feel about it.

    When it is Used: ACT can help treat many mental and physical conditions, including anxiety disorders, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, psychosis, workplace stress, and chronic pain.

    What to Expect: Working with a therapist, the client will learn to listen to their own self-talk or the way they talk to themselves specifically about traumatic events, problematic relationships, physical limitations, or other challenges. They can then decide if a problem requires immediate action and change or if it can, or must, be accepted for what it is while they learn to make behavioral changes that can modify the situation. They may look at what hasn’t worked for them in the past, and the therapist can help them stop repeating thought patterns and behaviors that can cause them more problems in the long run. Once they have faced and accepted your current challenges, they can make a commitment to stop fighting their past and their emotions and, instead, start practicing more confident and optimistic behavior, based on their personal values and goals. ACT aims to develop and expand psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility encompasses emotional openness and the ability to adapt the client's thoughts and behaviors to better align with their values and goals.

    Six Core Processes of Psychological Flexibility: Acceptance: Acceptance involves the client acknowledging and embracing the full range of their thoughts and emotions rather than trying to avoid, deny, or alter them. Cognitive Defusion: Cognitive defusion involves the client distancing themselves from and changing the way they react to distressing thoughts and feelings, which will mitigate their harmful effects. Techniques for cognitive defusion include observing a thought without judgment, singing the thought, and labeling the automatic response that they have. Being Present: Being present involves the client being mindful in the present moment and observing their thoughts and feelings without judging them or trying to change them; experiencing events clearly and directly can help promote behavior change. Self as Context: Self as context is an idea that expands the notion of self and identity; it suggests that people are more than their thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Values: Values encompass choosing personal values in different domains and striving to live according to those principles. This stands in contrast to actions driven by the desire to avoid distress or adhere to other people’s expectations, for example. Committed Action: Committed action involves the client taking concrete steps to incorporate changes that will align with their values and lead to positive change. This may involve goal setting, exposure to difficult thoughts or experiences, and skill development.

    How it Works: The theory behind ACT is that it is counterproductive to try to control painful emotions or psychological experiences; suppression of these feelings ultimately leads to more distress. ACT adopts the view that there are valid alternatives to trying to change the way you think, and these include mindful behavior, attention to personal values, and commitment to action. By taking steps to change their behavior while, at the same time, learning to accept their psychological experiences, clients can eventually change their attitudes and emotional states.

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32. #32Psychological Coaching

    Keys: Psychological Coaching

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    Overview: Psychological coaching is a process that aims to help clients achieve concrete goals, identify and overcome obstacles to well-being and performance, and build skills that may be interfering with their success. Coaching is specific, goal-oriented, and can be conducted one-on-one or in a group. Psychological coaching concentrates on individual or group strengths and abilities and how they might be used in new and different ways to enhance performance, feel better about the self, ensure smooth life transitions, strengthen relationships, deal with challenges, achieve goals, become more successful, or improve the overall quality of one’s personal and professional life. In general, coaching does not deal extensively with the negative, irrational, or pathological aspects of life; it also tends to be present-oriented and future-oriented, rather than dwelling on the past.

    When it is Used: Coaching is largely client-directed; often, the client will come in with specific issues or concerns they wish to address, and the coach will guide them toward identifying possible solutions and developing strategies to attain them. Coaches may also encourage clients to practice visualization, mindfulness, or other calming techniques to help promote positive emotions as the client works toward his or her goals.

    What to Expect: Most coaching is short-term and consists of straightforward, supportive, solution-based counseling. Depending on the client’s specific needs, the coach and client may explore techniques to alleviate stress, cope with specific challenges, successfully navigate upcoming transitions, and make more positive choices in the client’s personal or professional life.

    How it Works: Coaching is based on fairly straightforward principles—notably, that many people need help overcoming common obstacles to personal and professional success, and getting support from a third party who has expertise in a particular area can be helpful toward that end. Many coaches, no matter their specialty, aim to identify and bolster a client’s inherent strengths in order to help them lead a more authentic, motivated, and successful life. Five key factors help to support a positive coaching relationship: Establishing and maintaining trust, the coach's understanding and ability to manage a client's emotional responses and problems with empathy, two-way communication, the coach's ability to facilitate and help the client's learning and development to reach goals, and a clear transparent process.

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33. #33Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT)

    Keys: Compassion-Focused Therapy, CFT

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    Overview: Compassion-Focused therapy (CFT) is a therapeutic approach that aims to help those who struggle with shame and self-criticism, often resulting from early experiences of abuse or neglect. CFT teaches clients to cultivate the skills of self-compassion and other-oriented compassion, which are thought to help regulate mood and lead to feelings of safety, self-acceptance, and comfort. The technique is similar to mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in that it also instructs clients about the science behind the mind-body connection and how to practice mind and body awareness.

    When it is Used: CFT can be used to help manage many long-term emotional problems related to persistent shame, self-criticism, and an inability to view one’s self and one’s behaviors kindly and compassionately. Potential clinical issues that can be helped by CFT include anxiety disorders, mood disorders, personality disorders, eating disorders, hoarding disorder, and psychosis, as well as anger issues, poor body image, and relationship challenges.

    What to Expect: CFT treatment works toward the overarching goal of cultivating compassion for the self and others. To that end, the therapist will often start by teaching the client about the evolution of the brain, the construction of the self, and the systems that regulate emotions, as Gilbert theorizes that disruptions in the brain’s emotion regulation systems lead someone to hyperfocus on threat while disregarding the need to self-soothe. The therapist will then help the client develop the key skills of compassion, self-compassion, and mindfulness via a technique known as Compassionate Mind Training (CMT_. CMT is comprised of guided exercises (including role-playing, visualization, meditation, and activities intended to foster appreciation for daily life) that aim to help the client recognize what compassion feels like and become better at practicing it, both toward themselves and toward others. Clients will also learn how to recognize self-criticism and develop techniques for defusing it when it arises. This may include visualizing their internal critic or identifying compassionate images to call to mind during moments of self-criticism. Clients typically receive homework to practice these skills on days without sessions. CFT requires a high degree of self-focus (which can be challenging for those who are hypercritical of themselves or who dislike attention) and it may take several sessions before the client starts to notice positive effects.

    How it Works: CFT postulates that humans have at least three different emotion regulation systems: a threat and self-protection system, which generates anger, disgust, or fear to protect us; a drive and excitement system, which motivates us to seek outside resources like mates, food, and status; and a soothing and social safety system, which is activated when we feel peaceful and content enough that we are no longer compelled to seek outside resources. Imbalances between these three systems can result in mental illness and/or maladaptive thought processes and behaviors, CFT theorizes. People high in shame and self-criticism may not have had enough stimulation of their soothing system early in life, and too much stimulation of their threat system. As a result, they can struggle to be kind to themselves or feel kindness from others. They may be highly sensitive to criticism or rejection, whether real or perceived, and internalize that disapproval. The goal of CFT, then, is to correct this imbalance in the emotion regulation systems. CFT overlaps with therapies developed to treat trauma, most of which address early memories, recognize negative thoughts, and correct misperceptions. But for some clients who struggle with shame and self-criticism, being able to counter unreasonable thoughts isn’t enough; without self-compassion, logic does not translate into feeling better. The goal of CFT is to replace feelings of hostility and insecurity toward oneself with compassion and understanding, so that clients can begin to soothe themselves, accept soothing from others, and generate feelings of contentment and safety.

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34. #34Existential Therapy

    Keys: Existential Therapy

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    Overview: Existential therapy focuses on free will, self-determination, and the search for meaning—often centering on the individual rather than on their symptoms. The approach emphasizes a person's capacity to make rational choices and to develop to their maximum potential. Some practitioners regard existential therapy as an orientation toward therapy, not a distinct modality, per se. This type of therapy is often useful for clients who experience existential threat or dread when security and identity feel in peril. The existential approach stresses that (1) All people have the capacity for self-awareness, (2) Each person has a unique identity that can be known only through relationships with others, (3) People must continually re-create themselves because life’s meaning constantly changes, and (4) Anxiety is part of the human condition.

    When it is Used: Existential therapy can be useful in treating psychological concerns that are thought to result from an inhibited ability to make authentic, meaningful, and self-directed choices. Interventions often aim to increase self-awareness and self-understanding. Existential psychotherapists try to comprehend and alleviate a variety of symptoms, including excessive anxiety, apathy, alienation, nihilism, avoidance, shame, addiction, despair, depression, guilt, anger, rage, resentment, embitterment, purposelessness, psychosis, and violence. They also focus on life-enhancing experiences like relationships, love, caring, commitment, courage, creativity, power, will, agency, presence, spirituality, individuation, self-actualization, authenticity, acceptance, transcendence, and awe.

    What to Expect: Existential psychotherapies use a range of approaches, but major themes focus on the concepts of responsibility and freedom. Therapists help the client find meaning in the face of anxiety by choosing to think and act responsibly and by confronting negative internal thoughts rather than focusing on external forces like societal pressures or luck. Fostering creativity, love, authenticity, and free will are common avenues that help move you toward transformation. Similarly, when treating addiction disorders, the existential therapist coaches a person to face the anxiety that abuse use may be alleviating, and encourages them to take responsibility for their life. The goal: To make more willful decisions about how to live, drawing on creativity and love, instead of letting outside events determine one's behavior.

    How it Works: Existential psychotherapy fairly and honestly confronts life’s 'ultimate concerns', including loneliness, suffering, and meaninglessness. Specific concerns are rooted in each individual's experience, while common universal concerns are death, isolation, freedom, and emptiness. Existential therapy focuses on the anxiety that occurs when clients confront these inherent conflicts, and the therapist’s role is to foster personal responsibility for making decisions. The therapist may be seen as a 'fellow traveler' through life who uses empathy and support to elicit insight and choices. The core question addressed in this kind of therapy is 'How do I exist in the face of uncertainty, conflict, or death?' While existential therapy may be grounded in theory, it is also wholly practical. Some consider it an exploration of a patient’s life and what he experiences, discovery of purpose, meaning, who you are, and determination.

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35. #35Gestalt Therapy

    Keys: Gestalt Therapy

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    Overview: Gestalt therapy is an approach to psychotherapy that helps clients focus on the present to understand what is actually happening in their lives at this moment, and how it makes them feel in the moment, rather than what they may assume to be happening based on past experience. Their foundational premise is that people are best thought of as a whole entities consisting of body, mind, and emotions, and best understood when viewed through their own eyes. The gestalt philosophy rejects the notion that any one particular trait, episode, or indeed a diagnosis could define a person. Instead, their total self must be explored, discovered, and confronted. As they encounter and gain awareness of other parts of themselves, individuals can take greater responsibility for themselves and hopefully gain a greater sense of what they can do for themselves and others. Instead of simply talking, clients in gestalt therapy are often encouraged to engage in intellectual and physical experiences that can include role-playing, re-enactment, or artistic exercises like drawing and painting. In this way, clients can learn to become more aware of their thoughts and actions, of how negative thought patterns and behaviors may be blocking their self-awareness and making them unhappy, and how they can change.

    When it is Used: Gestalt therapy can help clients with issues such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, relationship difficulties, and even some physical concerns such as migraines, ulcerative colitis, and back spasms. People who are interested in working on their self-awareness but may not understand the role they play in their own unhappiness and discomfort could be good candidates for gestalt therapy.

    What to Expect: A Gestalt therapist focuses on what is happening in the moment and finding solutions in the present. For example, rather than discuss why something happened to the client in the past, the therapist might encourage them to re-enact the moment and discuss how it feels right now—in other words, actually to experience those feelings rather than just talking about them. The therapist may ask questions like, “What’s going on in this moment?” or “How does this make you feel now?” The gestalt therapist may encourage the client to try dream work, guided fantasy, role-playing, and other techniques to help bring past and current struggles to life in the therapeutic setting. As a client becomes more aware of themselves and their senses, they can begin to move past blame and take more responsibility for themselves, accept the consequences of their behavior, and learn to satisfy their own needs while still respecting the needs of others.

    The Therapist's Role in Gestalt Therapy: A Gestalt therapist strives to remain empathetic and non-judgmental and to be accessible to clients without exuding an air of superiority. While the therapist may not impose their own interpretations on their clients’ experiences, they will listen closely to their words, keenly observe their body language, and guide sessions based on what they hear and see. For example, the therapist is likely to encourage clients to use “I” statements that focus on their own actions and feelings instead of those of others (“I feel anger when she ignores me” instead of “She makes me mad by ignoring me”) as a way of moving toward taking personal responsibility. And if a client begins dwelling on their past, or fixating on anxiety about the future, the therapist may urge them to come back into the present and explore their emotions in the moment.

    Gestalt Therapy Exercises: The Empty Chair: In this exercise, the client sits across from an empty chair, representing a partner, relative, boss, or other person—or in some cases, a part of themselves—and, with the therapist’s encouragement, improvises a dialog with it. (Sometimes the client will go back and forth improvising the roles of both parties.) The goal is to address “unfinished business,” resolving past conflicts or encounters within their own selves by bringing the emotions raised into the present and working through them in the moment. Individuals may find that through this exercise they can access feelings and perceptions in a way that they could not by simply talking about a person, episode, or concern. Exaggeration: A Gestalt therapist will closely observe a client’s gestures and physical responses as they speak—for example, slouching, frowning, or bouncing their leg. In an exercise known as exaggeration, they may ask the client to repeat and exaggerate a given movement to explore the emotions attached to it in the moment and to help them gain a greater general understanding of the connection between their emotions and their bodies. Through these exercises and other gestalt techniques, individuals may be able to reconnect with feelings they might otherwise ignore or deny, and reconnect those parts of themselves into their whole self.

    How it Works: Gestalt therapy is based on the principle that to alleviate unresolved negative feelings like anger, pain, anxiety, and resentment, those emotions cannot just be discussed, but must be actively expressed in the present. Without that, psychological and physical symptoms can arise. In building self-awareness, gestalt therapy aims to help clients better understand themselves and how the choices they make affect their health and their relationships. With this self-knowledge, clients can begin to understand how their emotional and physical selves are connected and develop the confidence to live a fuller life without holding themselves back, and to more effectively face problems when they arise.

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36. #36Humanistic Therapy

    Keys: Humanistic Therapy

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    Overview: Humanistic therapy, also known as humanism, is a form of talk therapy that focuses on a person’s individual nature, rather than assuming that groups of people with similar characteristics have the same concerns. Humanistic therapists aim to consider the whole person, especially their positive characteristics and potential for growth, not only from their professional viewpoint but from a client’s own personal sense of their behavior. The emphasis in sessions is on a person’s positive traits and behaviors and developing their ability to use their instincts to find wisdom, growth, healing, and fulfillment.

    When it is Used: Humanistic therapy can be used to treat people with depression, anxiety, panic disorders, personality disorders, schizophrenia, addiction, and interpersonal and familial relationship concerns. The approach can also benefit people who have low self-esteem, who are struggling with finding a purpose or reaching their potential, who lack feelings of “wholeness,” who are searching for personal meaning, or who are not comfortable with themselves as they are.

    What to Expect: Humanistic therapy sessions encompass a gestalt approach (exploring how a person feels in the here and now) rather than trying to identify past events that led to these feelings. A humanistic therapist seeks to provide an atmosphere of support, empathy, and trust in which an individual can share their feelings without fear of judgment. The therapist does not assume the role of an authority figure with clients; the relationship is one of equals and wherever possible, the direction of sessions is determined by the client and their concerns in the moment as the expert on their own life and challenges.

    Conditions supporting Successful Humanistic Therapy: Unconditional Positive Regard: The therapist remains empathetic and non-judgmental as they hear and accept the client’s statements; they convey understanding, trust, and confidence so that they can encourage clients to feel valued in discovering and making more positive choices. Empathetic Understanding: The therapist fully understands and accepts an individual’s thoughts and feelings in a way that enables the individual to reshape their sense of their experiences.", Congruence and Genuineness: The therapist brings no air of superiority or authority to sessions, but presents an accessible face that clients see is honest and transparent.

    How it Works: Less focused on pathology, past experiences, and environmental influences on behavior, humanistic therapy is more focused on the positive side of human nature. A core tenet of humanistic therapy is that people are inherently motivated to fulfill their internal needs, and that each person has the power to find the best solutions for themselves and the ability to make appropriate changes in their lives. This concept known as self-actualization. When humanistic therapy succeeds, people experience themselves as well understood by their therapist, which should help them feel more empowered, more conscious of their strengths and skills, and better equipped to make changes in their life that will help them fulfill their goals and needs.

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37. #37Motivational Interviewing (MI)

    Keys: Motivational Interviewing, MI

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    Overview: Motivational Interviewing (MI) helps clients resolve ambivalent feelings and insecurities to find the internal motivation they need to change their behavior. It is a practical, empathetic, and short-term process that takes into consideration how difficult it is to make life changes. Recognizing that clients sometimes back off and resist well-meaning advice from others, motivational interviewing focuses on coming alongside the person and helping them to discover why they may seek to change themselves, and how they can do that.

    When it is Used: Motivational interviewing can help address addiction and the management of physical health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and asthma. This approach helps clients become motivated to change the behaviors that are preventing them from making healthier choices. It can also prepare clients for further and more specific types of therapies. This approach works well with clients who start off unmotivated or unprepared for change. It can also be helpful for clients who are angry or hostile: Even if they may not be ready to commit to change, motivational interviewing can help them move through the emotional stages of change necessary for them to find their motivation.

    What to Expect: In a supportive manner, the MI therapist encourages clients to talk about their need for change and their own reasons for wanting to change. The role of the therapist is mainly to evoke a conversation about change and commitment. The MI listens and reflects back the client’s thoughts so that the client can hear their reasons and motivations expressed back to them. Motivational Interviewing is guided by four key principles, which are expressing empathy, supporting self-efficacy, rolling with resistance, and identifying discrepancies.

    Four Principles Guiding Motivational Interviewing: Expressing Empathy: Empathy is a key component of motivational interviewing. The therapist first listens carefully to the client, then and conveys that they understand the client’s feelings, beliefs, and experiences. Supporting Self-Efficacy: Motivational interviewing believes that clients possess the strength and ability to grow and change, even if past attempts at change have failed. The therapist supports the client’s belief in themselves that they can change. The therapist may do this by calling attention to the client’s skills, strengths, or past successes. Rolling with Resistance: If the client is struggling to change, the client may resist potential solutions or the therapist’s guidance. In motivational interviewing, the therapist avoids becoming defensive or argumentative if they encounter resistance. Instead, the therapist helps the client identify the problem and solution themselves. The therapist doesn’t impose their viewpoint on the client, but helps the client consider multiple viewpoints.", Identifying Discrepancy: The MI therapist helps the client identify discrepancies between their present circumstances and their future goals. What thoughts and behaviors does the client need to change to achieve their goals? The therapist guides the patient in spotting this discrepancy and suggests solutions to reduce or resolve it.

    How it Works: The process of motivational interviewing is twofold. The first goal of the MI therapist is to increase the client’s motivation. The second is for the client to make the commitment to change. As opposed to simply stating a need or desire to change, hearing themselves express a commitment out loud has been shown to help improve a client’s ability to actually make those changes. The role of the therapist is more about listening than intervening. The MI therapist may make use of the four OARS skills (open-ended questions, affirmations, reflections, and summaries) to help the client. Motivational interviewing is often combined or followed up with other interventions, such as cognitive therapy, support groups, and stress management training.

    Four OARS Skills used by Motivational Interviewing Therapists: Open-ended Questions: Open-ended questions encourage clients to think deeply or differently about a given problem. Affirmations: Affirmations are statements that recognize a client’s strengths, which can instill confidence, or self-efficacy, in their ability to change. Reflections: Reflections involve listening to the patient and reflecting back a response, which can demonstrate empathy as well as point out discrepancies between their current behaviors and goals. Summaries: Summaries refer to recapping at the end of a session.

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38. #38Narrative Therapy

    Keys: Narrative Therapy

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    Overview: Narrative therapy views people as separate from their problems and destructive behaviors. This allows clients to get some distance from the difficulties they face, and helps them to see how it might actually be helping or protecting them, more than it is hurting them. With this perspective, individuals feel more empowered to make changes in their thought patterns and behavior and 'rewrite' their life story, separate from their problems, for a future that reflects who they really are, what they are capable of, and what their purpose is. Clients are encouraged to see themselves as having made a mistake, rather than condemning themselves as bad. A respectful, non-judgemental, and blame-free environment is encouraged. Narrative therapy helps a person to process and clarify what they experience through developing a good narrative.

    When it is Used: Narrative therapy is helpful for clients who define themselves by their problems, or whose lives are dominated by feelings. For example, narrative therapy can help clients with anxiety, depression, trauma, addictions, anger, and difficulties with emotional regulation. Through narrative therapy, clients can learn to see their problem as something they have, but not something that identifies who they are.

    What to Expect: Narrative therapy functions on Seven Core Aspects. During narrative therapy sessions, the narrative therapist will encourage the client to direct the conversation by asking what they prefer to talk about and, on an ongoing schedule, checking to see if the topic (which is most likely a problem), is still something they are interested in discussing. After some time, the narrative therapist will lead the client to share other, more positive stories from their life to help them discover inherent traits and skills that can be used to address their problems. The goal is for the client to see how there are positive and productive ways to approach their life and future when they stop identifying yourself by their problems.

    Seven Core Aspects of Narrative Therapy: Deconstruction: In deconstruction, the problematic and dominant storylines or narratives are explored and deconstructed through conversations with the narrative therapist. Breaking into Chunks: Following deconstruction of the narrative, the narrative therapist helps the client to break the narrative into smaller and more manageable chunks. Rewriting: The narrative therapist helps the client to rewrite the problematic and dominant storylines in their life. Broadening of View: The narrative therapist helps the client broaden their view of their life, and move towards healthier storylines. Also called the 'Unique Outcomes' technique, this can help clients better understand their experiences and emotions. Differences of Experiences: The narrative therapist helps the client realize and understand that what is true for one person may not be true for another person. Externalization: The narrative therapist helps the client to externalize their problem and realize that they are not their problem, and their identity does not lie in their problem. Healthy Narratives: The narrative therapist helps the client to develop a healthy narrative and realize that such a narrative helps the client to make meaning of events that happen in their life, and to see purpose in the future.

    How it Works: In narrative therapy, the events that occur over time in a client’s life are viewed as stories, some of which stand out as more significant or more fateful than others. These significant stories, usually stemming from negative events, can ultimately play a significant role in shaping the client’s identity and self-perception. Through moving beyond this self-imposed identity, the narrative therapist helps the client view their life as multi-tiered and full of possibilities that are just waiting to be discovered. The narrative therapist does not act as an expert, but rather helps clients see how they are the experts regarding their own life, and how they can uncover the dreams, values, goals, and skills that define who they are. Ultimately, the narrative therapist helps the client discover buried stories in themselves that can be rewritten and woven into the ongoing and future stories of their lives.

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39. #39Person-Centered Therapy (PCT)

    Keys: Person-Centered Therapy, PCT

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    Overview: Person-Centered Therapy (also known as Rogerian therapy or client-based therapy), employs a non-authoritative approach that allows clients to take more of a lead in sessions such that, in the process, they discover their own solutions. It is based in the belief that every person is unique and, therefore, everyone’s view of his or her own world, and their ability to manage it, should be trusted. During person-centered therapy, the therapist acts as a compassionate facilitator, listening without judgment and acknowledging the client’s experience without shifting the conversation in another direction. The therapist is there to encourage and support the client without interrupting or interfering with their process of self-discovery, as they uncover what hurts and what is needed to repair it.

    When it is Used: Person-Centered Therapy (PCT) can help those dealing with anxiety, depression, grief, abuse, breakups, professional anxiety, or family stressors. PCT may not be suitable for clients that require more structure, clients with high levels of stress or anxiety.

    What to Expect: Person-Centered Therapy is talk therapy in which the client does most of the talking. The PCT therapist will not actively direct conversation in sessions, or judge or interpret what the client says, but they may restate the client's words in an effort to fully understand the client's thoughts and feelings (and to help the client do the same). When clients hear their own words repeated back to them in this way, they may then wish to self-edit and clarify their meaning. This can actually happen several times until the client decides that they have expressed exactly what they are thinking and how they feel. There may be moments of silence in person-centered therapy to allow the client's thoughts to sink in, and for them to sit with their thoughts. This client-focused process is intended to facilitate self-discovery, self-acceptance, and provide a means of healing and positive growth.

    Three Conditions Supporting Success in PCT: Unconditional Positive Regard: PCT therapists must be empathetic and non-judgmental as they accept the client’s words and convey feelings of understanding and build trust with their clients. PCT therapists should also convey confidence in their clients which encourage clients to feel valued, and to make better decisions and choices of their own. Empathetic Understanding: PCT therapists should seek to completely understand and accept their clients’ thoughts and feelings in a way that can help reshape their client's sense of their experiences. Authenticity and Genuineness: PCT therapists should not carry an air of authority or superiority. Instead, PCT therapists should present a true and accessible self that clients can see is honest and transparent.

    How it Works: Three conditions support the success of PCT therapy by allowing clients to feel better understood in their therapy sessions, and these often leads to clients feeling better understood in other areas of their life as well. A PCT therapist should have the ability to remain calm in sessions, even if a client expresses negative thoughts about the therapist. A PCT therapist should also allow a client to verbalize that they are frustrated or disappointed, and seek to help the client discover what insights can be gained by exploring those feelings. The goal of PCT is to help clients arrive at greater independence in discovering their own strengths and solving their own problems with their own strength. The role that PCT therapists play is to be actively and engaged and responsive during therapy sessions, as well as creating an environment in which the client can progress toward solutions. This involves establishing trust, helping the client find clarity in their statements through repetition, listening closely for new layers of understanding, and expressing nonjudgmental empathy.

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40. #40Positive Psychology

    Keys: Positive Psychology

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    Overview: Positive psychology emphasizes traits, thought patterns, behaviors, and experiences that are forward-looking and can help improve the quality of a client’s daily life. These may include optimism, spirituality, hopefulness, gratitude, happiness, creativity, perseverance, justice, meaning and purpose, as well as the practice of free will. It is an exploration of the client’s strengths, rather than focusing on the client’s weaknesses. The goal of positive psychology is not to replace traditional forms of therapy that center on negative experiences, but instead to expand and give more balance to the therapeutic process. The idea is not so focused on fixing what is bad in life, but focusing on the positives and what is good.

    When it is Used: Clients who are depressed, anxious, or conflicted may benefit from positive psychology.

    What to Expect: While acknowledging the problems of the world as well as those faced by the client, positive psychologists believe one can still lead a productive, meaningful, and satisfying life. The goal is to minimize negativity in the client’s thinking and behavior, and to help the client develop a more optimistic and open attitude that will enhance their social, professional, and spiritual life. Therapists and counselors who use positive psychology deploy exercises and interventions to help their clients become more self-aware and identify their own positive traits, talents, and strengths. These strategies will hopefully increase the client’s positive emotions, as well as building hope and well-being. Well-being is understood in positive psychology as the PERMA model: (1) Positive Emotions, (2) Engagement, (3) Relationships, (4) Meaning, and 5) Accomplishments and Achievements.

    PERMA model of well-being in Positive Psychology: Positive Emotions: In positive psychology, it is acknowledged that the pursuit of positive emotions will not necessarily improve the client's well-being. However, the experience of positive emotions, through the client's savoring and appreciation of daily positive moments, may boost their well-being. Engagement: Finding ways to engage with life is important for the well-being of clients to avoid their mind and body running on auto-pilot, and to avoid them feeling their life is tedious and meaningless. Relationships: Clients are encouraged to find and develop positive, constructive, and beneficial relationships in positive psychology, as being connected to others in meaningful relationships helps clients to thrive. Meaning: Clients are encouraged to find meaning and purpose in their life, as this strengthens their sense of well-being. Accomplishment and Achievements: Clients are encouraged to set goals for themselves and accomplish them, as the quest and sense of self-improvement is essential to a sense of well-being.

    How it Works: In positive psychology, clients work with therapists to discover and learn to use their strengths. These exercises in happiness can help to make lasting and dramatic differences in the lives of clients who are depressed, anxious, or conflicted.

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41. #41Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT)

    Keys: Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, SFBT

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    Overview: Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) concentrates on finding solutions in the present and exploring the client’s hope for the future in order to find a quick and pragmatic resolution for their problems. The approach is grounded in the belief that the client knows what they need to do to improve their own life and, with the appropriate coaching and questioning, are capable of finding the best solutions.

    When it is Used: Clients who are struggling with behavioral problems, family dysfunction, abuse, addiction, or relationship problems may benefit from SFBT. SFBT may also help clients with depression or schizophrenia.

    What to Expect: Goal-setting is the foundation of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT). One of the first questions the SFBT therapist asks the client is called the “miracle question”: “If a miracle occurred while you were asleep tonight, what changes would you notice in your life tomorrow?” This opens up the client's mind to creating a plan that helps them reach their goal. The client, supported by the SFBT therapist, will begin to chart small, pragmatic ways to make changes in their life to achieve their goals. One of the tenets of SFBT is a positive, respectful, and hopeful outlook on the part of the therapist. SFBT therapists maintain the assumption that clients have the strength, wisdom, experience, and resilience to effect change. What other models view as 'resistance' is viewed in SFBT as people's natural protective mechanisms, or a previous therapist’s error that does not fit the client's situation. These assumptions help SFBT therapy sessions to feel collegial and friendly rather than hierarchical or top-down.

    How it Works: A core belief of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy is that the solution to a problem is found in the 'exceptions' (the times when the client is free of the problem or taking steps to manage the problem). By identifying these 'exceptions' and what causes them, the SFBT therapist then focuses on continuing and amplifying what works. SFBT also acknowledges that no matter how good a solution may seem, if it does not work, it is not a solution. SFBT is also based on the belief that all clients are at least somewhat motivated to find solutions. SFBT thus begins with what the client is currently doing to initiate behavioral and lifestyle changes. The therapist uses interventions such as specific questioning techniques, 0-10 scales, empathic support, and compliments to help a client recognize the virtues and strengths that have previously gotten the client through hard times, and are likely to work in the future. Clients learn to focus on what they can do, rather than what they can’t do.

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42. #42Strength-Based Therapy (SBT)

    Keys: Strength-Based Therapy, SBT

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    Overview: Strength-Based Therapy (SBT) is a type of positive psychotherapy and counseling that focuses on the client's internal strengths and resourcefulness, rather than on the client's weaknesses, failures, and shortcomings. This focus sets up a positive mindset that helps the client build on their best qualities, find their strengths, improve resilience, and change their worldview to be more positive. A key focus of strength-based therapy involves discussing a patient’s problems to discover the client's inner strengths, which can be used to build solutions. Strength-based therapy supports solutions which come from clients themselves, but are guided by the therapist's expertise. Strength-based therapy also views clients as benefiting not from deep analysis of their problems, but discussion of how past positive experiences and personal strengths can be guideposts for a treatment plan.

    When it is Used: Clients with poor self-esteem, or who have emotional issues resulting from an abusive relationship can benefit from strength-based therapy. Clients with depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, relationship problems can also benefit from strength-based therapy. Finally, clients who may be adverse to the idea of 'therapy', but nevertheless seek help to work with them on solving their own difficulties, may benefit from strength-based therapy.

    What to Expect: Strength-based therapy is talk therapy that guides the client toward a retelling of their personal history of traumas, stressors, and pain with more emphasis on themselves as a survivor than as a victim, and more emphasis on their strengths and survival skills than on their weaknesses. The goal is for the client to recognize that they may already have the skills and strength to cope with tough situations if they are able to use them effectively. A core goals of strength-based therapy is to allow the client to view their conditions as just one part of their identity, rather than as a defining characteristic.

    How it Works: A strength-based therapist will first ask their client questions to help identify where their strengths lie, and when the client has achieved success over significant challenges in the past. The therapist will also ask the client questions about what they hope to achieve in the future, and what progress would look like for them. From here, both the client and therapist will work on a plan to use the strengths the client has to make incremental changes in their life to help get their client to the place they want to be. Drawing attention to the client's past successes can remind them of their inner strength and give them hope and confidence to tackle the plan in front of them. The strength-based therapy approach treats the client as an expert on themselves, and so is client-specific, with treatment plans emerging from the client rather than from the therapist or from theoretical frameworks that teach how to treat particular problems. Feedback between the client and the therapist on what works and what doesn't work is of the utmost importance for this reason.

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43. #43Behavioral Activation (BA)

    Keys: Behavioral Activation, BA

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    Overview: Behavioral Activation (BA) is a form of short-term outpatient therapy that engages clients in rewarding activities of their own choosing as a way to counter the negative feelings and withdrawal that are typical of depression. BA is a way of changing from the outside in—jump-starting clients back to the kind of life they once enjoyed. Evidence suggests that even in small doses, engaging in a constructive activity is positively reinforcing, not only rekindling interest in and energy for the activity but providing a sense of achievement—enough to disrupt the negative feelings, avoidant behavior, and disturbed mood that keep people trapped in depression, and the avoidant behavior that is the hallmark of anxiety. Under the active guidance of a therapist, clients are assigned to activities they themselves select—whether meeting a friend for coffee, listening to a podcast, or going for a walk in the park—and learn to formulate and accomplish behavioral goals.

    When it is Used: BA is suitable for people with depression who are not at immediate risk of self-harm. Studies indicate that it may be especially useful for those who are chronically depressed. Because it is action-oriented, it can be used to help people who are reluctant to talk about their feelings or do not have the language to do so.

    What to Expect: One of the essential ingredients of BA is understanding that depression works in vicious cycles. A stressful or negative event—such as ending a relationship or losing a job—triggers negative thoughts and feelings and behavioral shutdown. People withdraw from pleasurable social and other activities; the isolation amplifies negative feelings and provides no relief from them, intensifying depression.

    BA Steps: Activity Monitoring: The first step in BA is activity monitoring. clients are provided with worksheets on which they note daily activities and rate the moods each is associated with. Next, clients identify their life values and goals—whether related to work, learning, health and fitness, family, friendship, intimacy, entertainment, or more—as a guide to choosing concrete activities they will focus on adding to their days. They select a mix of those they find meaningful and those that build a sense of mastery, as well as those that bring pleasure. Building Meaningful and Enjoyable Activities: After activity monitoring, clients create daily schedules (a week at a time) in which they build in both meaningful activities and enjoyable ones. The activities deemed pleasant and those delivering mastery will be different for each person, as will the balance of the two kinds of activities. During Therapy Sessions: In sessions, clients discuss how to problem-solve, especially how to motivate themselves when they feel stuck. Between sessions, clients can expect assignments that focus on workarounds for any specific obstacles they encounter in getting things done. And while no one activity will alleviate depression, the effects of building routines of activities and accomplishing goals will build over time.

    How it Works: BA is based on the knowledge that inactivity leads to depression, which leads to more inactivity and deeper depression. BA provides a way of feeling better quickly, directly stimulating improvement in mood through action. In depression, people generally disengage from their routines and withdraw from their environment; as a result, there is no source of pleasant or rewarding experiences to draw on to motivate continued engagement. With BA, the activity itself generates changes in body physiology and chemistry that are mood-enhancing. BA works in more sustaining ways as well—participating in valued activities provides a sense of achievement that counters the negative thinking that keeps depressed people stuck. Over time, clients build a sense of mastery that helps make them emotionally resilient.

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44. #44Biofeedback

    Keys: Biofeedback

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    Overview: Biofeedback is a technique that involves monitoring a person’s physiological state and sending information about it back to that individual. The accumulated data allow clients to consciously control aspects of their physiology—using relaxation techniques to slow down heart rate, for example—and this learning is used to help manage symptoms of a variety of medical and psychological conditions.

    When it is Used: Biofeedback may be helpful in addressing anxiety, stress, trauma, insomnia, as well as a range of symptoms.

    What to Expect: Electronic sensors attached to the client provide signals and information on physiological markers. The therapist explains to the client how the signals relate to different physical or mental states, such as feeling more or less stressed. Ultimately, a client can be taught to employ certain techniques, such as mindfulness or breathing exercises, to modulate these states, using the feedback as a guide along the way.

    How it Works: By harnessing real-time information on one’s bodily state and demonstrating how it connects to conscious behaviors (such as thinking about certain images, breathing in a certain way, or relaxing muscles), biofeedback therapy is designed to help clients take more control over the functioning of their bodies. In the course of therapy, they may learn to better manage symptoms linked to the observed physiological activity.

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45. #45Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

    Keys: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, CBT

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    Overview: Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a short-term form of psychotherapy based on the idea that the way someone thinks and feels affects the way he or she behaves. CBT aims to help clients resolve present-day challenges like depression or anxiety, relationship problems, anger issues, stress, or other common concerns that negatively affect mental health and quality of life. The goal of treatment is to help clients identify, challenge, and change maladaptive thought patterns in order to change their responses to difficult situations.

    When it is Used: A large body of research has found it to be either highly or moderately effective in the treatment of depression, generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, general stress, anger issues, panic disorders, agoraphobia, social phobia, eating disorders, marital difficulties, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and childhood anxiety and depressive disorders.

    What to Expect: CBT usually starts with one or two sessions focused on assessment, during which the therapist will help the client identify the symptoms or behavior patterns that are causing them the most problems and set goals for treatment. In subsequent sessions, the client will identify the negative or maladaptive thoughts they have about their current problems and determine whether or not these thoughts are realistic. If these thoughts are deemed unrealistic, the client will learn skills that help them challenge and ultimately change their thinking patterns so they are more accurate with respect to a given situation. Once the client’s perspective is more realistic, the therapist can help them determine an appropriate course of action. CBT usually concludes with a session or two of recapping, reassessing, and reinforcing what was learned. If necessary, someone may return to therapy for periodic maintenance sessions. Along the way, clients will most likely be given “homework” to do between sessions. That work will typically include exercises that will help them learn to apply the skills and solutions they came up with in therapy to real-world situations in their day-to-day life. While clients undergoing CBT will likely not spend a large amount of time exploring their childhood or past, they may still be asked to examine thoughts and behavior patterns that they may find embarrassing or shameful. As in all types of therapy, it is important to work with a therapist with whom one can be open and candid.

    How it Works: CBT integrates behavioral theories and cognitive theories to conclude that the way people perceive a situation determines their reaction more than the actual reality of the situation does. When a person is distressed or discouraged, his or her view of an experience may not be realistic. Changing the way clients think and see the world can change their responses to circumstances. CBT often targets cognitive distortions, or irrational patterns of thought that can negatively affect behavior. Common cognitive distortions include all-or-nothing thinking (seeing everything in black-and-white terms and ignoring nuance), catastrophizing (always assuming the worst will happen), and personalization (believing that the individual is responsible for everything that happens around them, whether good or bad). CBT is rooted in the present, so the therapist will initially ask clients to identify life situations, thoughts, and feelings that cause acute or chronic distress. The therapist will then explore whether or not these thoughts and feelings are productive or even valid. The goal of CBT is to get clients actively involved in their own treatment plan so that they understand that the way to improve their lives is to adjust their thinking and their approach to everyday situations.

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46. #46Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)

    Keys: Cognitive Processing Therapy, CPT

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    Overview: In CPT, the therapist will help a client who has undergone significant trauma to evaluate his or her thoughts surrounding the trauma, particularly maladaptive or self-blaming thoughts that may be exacerbating PTSD symptoms, and conditions including anxiety and depression that set on in the wake of the experience. The client will then learn to challenge those thoughts and take a new perspective when appropriate. Like some other forms of CBT, at-home work is important for CPT; for example, clients will likely be asked to write an account of their trauma between sessions, to be read aloud in a later session.

    When it is Used: CPT is a viable treatment option for most clients struggling with PTSD. CPT may be particularly beneficial for those who anticipate encountering additional traumatic events as it aims to alter the way clients interpret and process trauma on an ongoing basis. It may not be an ideal treatment for clients struggling with substance abuse or suicidal ideation, or clients with comorbid bipolar disorder. In these instances, another trauma treatment, such as Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PET), is often recommended over CPT.

    What to Expect: Initial sessions are typically focused on psychoeducation that helps the client learn about PTSD and what they can expect from treatment. In subsequent sessions, the client will work with their therapist to identify and explore the ways that trauma may have altered the client’s thoughts and beliefs, affecting both the way they feel and how they act. Specifically, the therapist will help the client pick out thoughts that create barriers to recovery. The client will learn a set of strategies to challenge and modify thoughts that are inaccurate and/or unhelpful and will practice these strategies with the therapist and on their own with worksheets and exercises. Clients may be asked to write about the specific events of their traumatic experience, including any sensory details that they remember, or they may be asked to write more broadly about how their experience makes them feel and how they tend to think about what occurred.

    How it Works: Someone who has experienced significant trauma and has developed PTSD as a result may notice that they think very differently about themselves or their environment than they did prior to the trauma. This is often particularly noticeable in the following five areas: Safety (they may doubt their ability to protect themselves and others), Trust (they may question their judgment and/or the judgment and intentions of others), Control (they may feel unable to control their own life or influence the lives of those they care about), Esteem (they may view themselves and/or others differently, perhaps seeing themselves as “broken” or others as “evil.”), and Intimacy (they may feel incapable of connecting with or being understood by and accepted by others.) These thoughts tend to lead to negative emotions—fear, anxiety, guilt, and anger—and can halt the person's recovery from PTSD. CPT focuses on teaching a set of skills that will help the person challenge these negative thoughts. CPT is based on the social cognitive theory of PTSD, which posits that incorporating a traumatic event into one’s worldview is often counterproductive and may lead to maladaptive beliefs. CPT, therefore, focuses on repairing the damage done by a traumatic event to someone’s beliefs about themselves and the world. By offering specific cognitive restructuring skills, CPT allows an individual to challenge these negative thoughts and interpretations (known as stuck points), gain a healthier perspective about the trauma (for example, “While I can’t trust my abuser, I can still trust other people”), cope better with any future trauma, and move forward with their lives.

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47. #47Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)

    Keys: Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, DBT

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    Overview: Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a structured program of psychotherapy with a strong educational component designed to provide skills for managing intense emotions and negotiating social relationships. The “dialectic” in dialectical behavior therapy is an acknowledgment that real life is complex, and health is not a static thing but an ongoing process hammered out through a continuous Socratic dialogue with the self and others. It is continually aimed at balancing opposing forces and investigating the truth of powerful negative emotions. DBT acknowledges the need for change in a context of acceptance of situations and recognizes the constant flux of feelings (many of them contradictory) without having to get caught up in them. Therapist-teachers help clients understand and accept that thought is an inherently messy process. DBT is itself an interplay of science and practice, a comprehensive and multifaceted therapy designed to help clients cope with extreme emotional suffering and, often, self-injurious behavior.

    When it is Used: Originally developed to curb the self-destructive impulses of chronic suicidal patients, DBT is also the treatment of choice for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), emotion dysregulation, self-harm, PTSD, anxiety, and more.

    What to Expect: DBT is present-oriented and skills-based, and clients are asked to practice their skills between sessions. Clients can expect homework assignments, which might, for example, focus on taking specific, concrete steps to master relationship challenges. DBT specifically focuses on providing therapeutic skills in four key areas: Mindfulness (which enables clients to accept and be present in the current moment by noting the fleeting nature of emotions, thus diminishing the power of emotions to direct their actions), Distress Tolerence (the ability to tolerate negative emotion rather than needing to escape from it or acting in ways that make difficult situations worse), Emotion Regulation Strategies (which give clients the power to manage and change intense emotions that are causing problems in their life), and Interpersonal Effectiveness ( which allow a person to communicate with others in a way that is assertive, maintains self-respect, and strengthens relationships - a core principle is that learning how to ask directly for what you want diminishes resentment and hurt feelings). DBT incorporates many of the techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). It helps clients recognize and challenge the varieties of distorted thinking that underlie negative feelings and prompt unproductive behavior. For example, clients learn to identify when they are catastrophizing (assuming the worst will happen) in order to avoid acting as if it were the case. They review their own past and present experience for instances of all-or-nothing thinking, seeing everything in extremes of black or white, devoid of the nuance that is more generally the nature of life. Mindfulness training is an important part of DBT. In addition to keeping clients present-focused, it slows down emotional reactivity, affording people time to summon healthy coping skills in the midst of distressing situations. Clients are asked to keep a diary tracking their emotions and impulses, a tool that helps them gain awareness of their feelings, understand which situations are especially problematic for them, and use the information to gain control over their own behavior. In individual sessions, clients review difficult situations and feelings they faced the prior week and engage in problem-solving by actively discussing ways of behaving that might have delivered a positive outcome. In addition, clients typically have access to therapists between sessions for skills coaching if they are in a crisis.

    How it Works: In seeing many mental health conditions as disorders of emotion dysregulation, DBT is focused on emotions and how they feed ineffectual action patterns. Many elements of the therapy are aimed at teaching clients how to recognize, understand, label, and regulate their emotions and how to handle interpersonal situations that give rise to negative or painful emotions. Each week, for individual therapy sessions, clients complete a diary “card” (often done via an app), a self-monitoring form that tracks individualized treatment targets relating to moods, behavior, and skills. Clients identify and rate the intensity of emotions they experience each day—fear, shame, sadness, anger, pain, suicide attempts, and more—and space is provided to discuss emotional experience in more detail if needed. In addition, using a checklist of skills—which also serves as a handy reminder to deploy them—clients note the frequency with which they engaged in positive practices, from self-soothing and radical acceptance to reducing vulnerability and acting in ways contrary to how they felt. After identifying the behavioral targets for a session, the therapist helps the client engage in behavioral analysis, figuring out what led to a specific problem situation the client encountered, including any underlying beliefs or attitudes that surreptitiously reinforce the behavior, and discussing the consequences of the client’s actions. The therapist and client discuss more skillful ways to solve emotional and life problems.

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48. #48Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)

    Keys: Exposure and Response Prevention, ERP

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    Overview: Exposure and response prevention (ERP) is a form of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) used to treat a variety of conditions, including anxiety, phobias, and eating disorders. It is considered the gold-standard treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

    When it is Used: Exposure and response prevention is designed to gradually reduce the anxiety that feeds obsessions and compulsions. One way in which this is thought to happen is through a process called habituation, whereby people become less physiologically aroused by triggering stimuli or obsessions after being repeatedly and safely exposed to them. Further, clients with OCD, anxiety, phobias, or eating disorders learn over time that the stimuli, thoughts, and feelings that prompt compulsions are more bearable than they anticipated. They also realize that being exposed to their fears does not actually lead to the outcomes they dread. They come to recognize that they are capable of coping with the triggers without resorting to compulsive rituals.

    What to Expect: Exposure and response prevention can help people manage anxiety-provoking or obsessive thoughts and behavior. It involves two steps. First, clients are directly exposed to stimuli that generally evoke fear, distress, obsessive thoughts, or compulsive, ritualistic behavior (exposure component). Next, they learn therapeutic techniques to help prevent their usual maladaptive response. As a result, they get accustomed to experiencing a trigger but not giving in to the compulsion. This is the response-prevention component.

    How it Works: Exposure and response prevention begins with a thorough assessment, during which the therapist will provide education about the client’s specific condition and identify their unique triggers and the compulsions they provoke. With the therapist’s guidance, the client is systematically exposed to objects, situations, mental images, or other stimuli that trigger obsessions. An important challenge in ERP is the “response prevention” component (learning not to respond to the obsessions with the usual compulsive behaviors). With exposure to increasingly uncomfortable stimuli, clients acquire the ability to tolerate the distress they generate without having to resort to rituals that only wind up perpetuating obsessive-compulsive patterns.

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49. #49Forensic Therapy

    Keys: Forensic Therapy

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    Overview: Forensic therapy is concerned with the mental health assessment, evaluation and treatment of clients who are in the legal system for crimes committed. Victims and families may also be involved in the therapy related to the occurrence of crimes. A forensic therapist helps the offender to examine the motivations for their behavior, the actions committed, and take responsibility for them, which may help prevent any future activity. Where possible, a therapist works to prevent recidivism on the part of the offender, and/or evaluates inmates to assess the likelihood that they will commit further crimes.

    When it is Used: Forensic therapists often work with offenders who have antisocial personalities or psychopathy.

    What to Expect: An assessment may be conducted for the purpose of determining a course of therapeutic treatment or simply to establish facts, such as mental competency, for use in the legal system. When a forensic therapist is assessing an individual for treatment, the emphasis is less on determining the facts of a case and more on identifying the person's problems and deciding on an appropriate treatment plan.

    How it Works: The treatment goal of forensic therapy is to understand what triggers a person to commit a crime and help that person understand their own motivations and take responsibility for their actions. By building this self-awareness, as well as an understanding of the nature and impact of their crime, it may be possible for offenders to change their thinking and behavior patterns so they are less likely to act out or commit crimes in the future.

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50. #50Mentalization-Based Therapy (MBT)

    Keys: Mentalization-Based Therapy, MBT

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    Overview: Mentalizing, or the ability to focus on and differentiate between your own emotional state of mind and that of others, and understand how one’s mental state influences behavior, is a normal cognitive function that is limited in those with borderline personality disorder. Enhancement of mentalization and improved emotional regulation are at the core of MBT treatment.

    When it is Used: An inability to mentalize often stems from an insecure attachment to a parent, or abandonment issues early in life. If the client lacks an understanding of their own and other people's feelings, they may have difficulty both regulating their own problematic emotions and behavior and correctly identifying the thoughts and feelings of others. They may not understand the intent behind other people’s behavior, and may respond impulsively and inappropriately in ways that can disrupt their relationships. Mentalization-based therapy can thus be an effective treatment for increasing the capacity to mentalize in people with borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality, addiction, eating disorders, and depression.

    What to Expect: MBT therapists work to create a safe environment in which clients can begin a deep exploration of their own feelings and those of others, ultimately developing their capacity for mentalization. The MBT therapist focuses on the client's present rather than their past. MBT may draw from psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, systemic, dialectical-behavior, and social-ecological therapies. However, MBT differs from DBT through MBT's foundations in psychoanalysis, attachment theory, and acceptance.

    How it Works: MBT helps clients to think before they react to their own feelings or to the perceived feelings of others. With an improved ability to mentalize, clients not only process their own thoughts, feelings, and related behaviors differently, but can also better understand that another person’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior may differ from their own interpretation. The goal of mentalizing is for clients to not only better understand themselves but also to improve their theory of mind regarding others, and to think about what may be driving other people’s thoughts and behaviors. Such an ability will help the client avoid misinterpreting another person’s meaning and respond appropriately to them.

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