Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is the process of analyzing your life’s patterns to reduce troubling, stressful thoughts. It aims to enable patients, or clients, to understand their feelings and what makes them feel cheerful, anxious, or depressed. As a result, psychotherapy can equip them to cope with difficult situations more adaptively. A psychotherapist may be a psychologist, a marriage and family therapist, a licensed clinical social worker, a licensed professional counselor, or a psychiatrist.

Some forms of psychotherapy last only a few sessions, while others are long-term, lasting for months or years. Sessions are usually 45 minutes to 1 hour, once a week. Psychotherapy can be done individually, with couples, and in groups. There are many different forms of psychotherapy. They include psychodynamic therapy, behavior therapy, cognitive therapy, humanistic therapy, holistic therapy, and many more.

Counseling tends to focus on specific issues and is designed to help an individual work through a particular problem, such as a career change or stress management. Counseling is also usually more short-term than psychotherapy.

Psychotherapy operates off the premise that patterns of thinking and behavior affect how a person interacts with the world - we help identify these patterns. Generally, psychotherapy aims to help people feel equipped to notice and understand patterns in their behavior and how said behaviors interfere with reaching personal goals and having more satisfying relationships. As a result, clients become better equipped to regulate their thinking and emotional responses to stressful situations. Since this focus aims to resolve core conflicts, psychotherapy is more of a long-term treatment.