Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is the relief of distress or disability in one person by another. However, where psychotherapy differs from other forms of counselling or caregiving is that the agent in the situation, the psychotherapist, has had some formal training in delivering such relief; and that such relief is based on a particular theory or approach. However, as psychotherapy does not necessarily follow medical theories in the treatment of specific symptoms, the term is sometimes used interchangeably with counselling.

Psychotherapy works through various models and approaches that start from the same set-up: a deliberate interaction or structured encounter between the patient and a trained psychotherapist, during which conversation, written work, music or art are employed to construct a co-narrative, enabling the patient to improve their sense of well-being. This technique is often employed to cure or control manifestations of both clinically diagnosable and existential crises, be they a specific manifestation as a result of the crisis, or a non-specific one (e.g. a general malaise or depression).

The earliest psychotherapy began as psychoanalysis in the late 19th Century, although it is arguable that as early as the Ancient Greeks, Romans and Persians were loose forms of what we would describe as psychotherapy being conducted in the form of philosophical enquiry.

Today, psychotherapy can be applied to groups too, such as in the case of child psychotherapy, where parents, the therapist and the child are all involved in a series of plays, such as role-play, and the therapist constructs a co-narrative from the make-believe to find ways to help the child in association with the parents. The involvement of the parents in child psychotherapy relates directly to the Carl Rogers’ Person-Centred Principles of Psychotherapy, whereby the psychotherapist helps the patient by providing transparent, genuine support and positive reinforcement. In child psychotherapy, it is considered important that the parents be involved in this process.