Insight Therapies
Psychodynamic Therapies
Psychodynamic therapies are based on the notion that psychological well-being depends on self-understanding. These therapies attempt to uncover childhood experiences that explain a patient’s current difficulties.
Psychoanalysis
Freud’s method of psychotherapy; uses free association, dream analysis, and transference.
Free Association
A psychoanalytic technique used to explore the unconscious by having patients reveal whatever thoughts or images come to mind. The analyst pieces together the free-flowing associations, explains their meaning, and helps patients gain insight into the thoughts and behavior that are troubling them.
Dream Analysis
Another technique used by psychoanalysts.
Transference
An intense emotional reaction during psychoanalysis, when the patient displays feelings and attitudes toward the analyst that were present in a significant relationship in the past.
Many therapists today practice brief psychodynamic therapy, in which the therapist and patient decide on the issues to explore at the outset rather than waiting for them to emerge in the course of treatment.
Crits-Christoph
Found brief psychodynamic therapy to be as effective as other psychotherapies.
Humanistic Therapies
Humanistic therapies assume that people have the ability and freedom to lead rational lives and make rational choices.
Person-Centered Therapy
A nondirective, humanistic therapy in which the therapist creates a warm, accepting climate, freeing clients to be themselves and releasing their natural tendency toward positive growth.
Developed by Carl Rogers, this view posits that people are innately good and, if allowed to develop naturally, will grow toward self-actualization—the realization of their inner potential.
Nondirective Therapy
An approach in which the therapist acts to facilitate growth, giving understanding and support rather than proposing solutions, answering questions, or actively directing the course of therapy.
Gestalt Therapy
A therapy that emphasizes the importance of clients’ fully experiencing, in the present moment, their feelings, thoughts, and actions and taking personal responsibility for their behavior. The goal of Gestalt therapy is to help clients achieve a more integrated self and become more authentic and self-accepting.
Directive Therapy
An approach to therapy in which the therapist takes an active role in determining the course of therapy sessions and provides answers and suggestions to the patient.