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Psychotherapy, also known as talk therapy or counselling, can assist with a broad range of mental health conditions and emotional difficulties by exploring the factors that have an impact on your thinking patterns, feelings, moods, and behaviour. Psychotherapy assists with learning how to control or overcoming symptoms, respond to challenging circumstances, and improve overall emotional wellbeing.

Therapy sessions can be delivered in individual, family, or group settings for both children and adults. Usually, a session will last 50 minutes, and the frequency of sessions will depend on individual needs. Psychotherapy involves the client and the therapist actively engaging. The relationship between the client and the therapist is important for successful intervention. Trust helps to reduce stress and feel comfortable expressing difficult emotions in a non-judgemental setting. Effective collaborative work results in the best outcome for the client. Research highlights that most people who receive psychotherapy experience symptom reduction and improvements in their life.

Therapy can be short-term, a few sessions to help with immediate life challenges, or long-term, regular sessions for a period of months or years to deal with longstanding, complex mental health conditions. The therapy goals and frequency of the sessions are agreed between the therapist and the client.

Benefits of Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy assists people with a mental health disorder, by:

• Understanding feelings, emotions and behaviours, and factors that impact their mental health diagnosis and learn how to cope with or alter them.
• Reflecting on and identifying the life circumstances or events that contribute to their mental health challenges, such as childhood trauma (which may be the root cause of the problem), dealing with a chronic health condition, divorce etc.
• Improving emotional wellbeing and quality of life.
• Learning healthy coping strategies and problem-solving skills.
• Learning to work cooperatively with others and resolve conflicts.
• Psychotherapy can assist with a wide range of mental health conditions, including:
  • • Anxiety
    • Depression
    • Bipolar disorder
    • Trauma, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
    • Anorexia, bulimia, and other eating disorders
    • Personality disorders o Schizophrenia
    • Addictions
    • Loss and grief issues
    • Relationship challenges

Medication and Psychotherapy

Often medication and psychotherapy are used in combination to treat mental health diagnosis. This varies for individuals. Some clients can improve their symptoms with psychotherapy alone and others may need medication to follow through with techniques discussed in psychotherapy. Further, healthy lifestyle choices like good nutrition, adequate sleep, physical exercise, and meaningful activities can support recovery and overall mental wellbeing.

Types of Psychotherapy

Mental health professionals use several different types of therapy, depending on the client’s individual mental health needs and circumstances. At Peaceful Psychology your therapist may combine elements from different therapeutic approaches to develop person-centred therapeutic intervention.

Different Types of Therapy Include:

Psychodynamic Therapy

Psychodynamic therapy assumes that emotional problems are caused by unresolved, usually unconscious, conflicts from childhood. Therapy goals are to understand and manage feelings by exploring past experiences. Psychodynamic therapy is usually undertaken over a period of at least several months, sometimes longer.

Interpersonal Therapy

Interpersonal therapy reflects on behaviour and interactions between family and friends. The therapy goals are to improve communication skills and self-esteem. This therapy can be effective for dealing with depression caused by relationship conflicts, grief and mourning, social isolation, and major life events such as transitioning into a parent or carer role.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

Cognitive behavioural therapy assists people with mental health challenges to identify irrational perceptions or thoughts about themselves and the people around them. The therapist will assist with identifying and learning new thinking which is helpful to overcome emotional challenges.

• Cognitive – identifying unhelpful and challenging or negative thinking patterns.
• Behavioural – confronting fear or trauma in a safe environment.

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)

DBT is an approach to helping people who have problems with their emotions or behaviours. The term ‘dialectical’ means focusing on two opposites, such as acceptance and change, and aiming for a better result. Further, it confronts and changes unhealthy behaviours like self-harm and suicidality, and improves emotional wellbeing.

Comprehensive DBT also focuses on:

• Distress tolerance – Learning to manage anger without responding impulsively.
• Emotion regulation – Recognising, labelling, and adjusting to emotions.
• Mindfulness – Attending to the present moment, being more aware of self and others.
• Interpersonal effectiveness – Learning to deal with conflicts and interacting assertively.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

The core message of ACT is accepting what is not in our control and committing to work towards improving life circumstances by:

• Learning skills to effectively deal with difficult feelings and thoughts, and to reduce their impact and influence on you.
• Identifying values about how you want to behave as a human being and treat yourself or others. Using values as a guide to inspire and motivate actions, face your fears, live a meaningful life, or change your life for the better.
• Attending to what’s important and fully engaging in the present activity.

The effectiveness of psychotherapy depends on active participation, effort, and commitment to follow through with the strategies discussed.

Useful Tips

Attendance – Regular attendance, as agreed with the therapist, is very important.

Work cooperatively with the therapist – Identifying therapy goals and reviewing and making necessary changes.

Identify triggers – Journaling or making notes regarding triggers and improvements.

Identify improvements – Positive and effective behaviour.

Make time – Engaging in meaningful and pleasurable recreational activities.

Communicate – Communicate challenges, difficulties, feelings, and needs.

Be open and honest – Successful therapeutic intervention depends on willingness to share difficult experiences, thoughts, and emotions and being open to new approaches or following through with strategies discussed. If you are feeling uncomfortable disclosing personal feelings, you should inform the therapist.

Commitment to treatment plan – It is normal to feel stressed and anxious or to lack motivation to attend therapy but skipping therapy sessions can disrupt progress.

Don’t expect quick changes – You have probably experienced these challenges for a long time and working through them can be difficult, so you might need several sessions before noticing any changes.

Do your homework tasks – Following through with strategies discussed or tasks like journaling which your therapist asks you to do is important. They will give you confidence and assist with achieving your therapy goals.

References:

https://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/mental-health-schizophrenia https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/dialectical-behavioral-therapywhat-is-dbt.pdf (APT training on DBT)
https://www.actmindfully.com.au/about-act/

If you or someone you know are experiencing stress or mental health concern, book an appointment with Jayani Jayatilake, Peaceful Psychology.

Contact 0426 191 010 or send us a message.

A highly experienced Counsellor, Jayani Jayatilake has a Masters Degree in Social Work and further completed 14 units in Master of Counselling at the I University of Queensland. Jayani believes that the client is an expert in his/her own situation and encourages clients to take an active role in their recovery by helping them to recognise and acknowledge their own strengths, resilience and resourcefulness in overcoming barriers to improve their quality of life.