Kinds of Psychotherapy
Cognitive-Behavioural
This approach sees the way we behave as being the result of learning, or as a reaction to something that once happened. It's really useful for people who have phobias (you know, if you're scared of spiders or are terrified of dangling off the top of the Empire State Building). Results are often very promising, and it often doesn't take long to achieve changes. But remember, this approach is focused on behaviours (though you can include depression in here); it's about thinking-processes, and aims to either remove a certain behaviour or help you adapt to it.
Humanistic & Existential
The basic idea with both these approaches is that you're a grown-up responsible person, trying to live right now in a way that is fulfilling and which makes sense to you. You have a past - of course - but it only matters insofar as it affects the way you're living, feeling and thinking NOW. And you have a future: you have hopes and dreams. You believe in things - whether it's God, or the fact that Liverpool are the greatest team EVER (P.S. I'm not into football, so don't take this example too seriously...), and your beliefs matter and shape your life. You have the creative possibilities to change yourself and the ways you think and feel, but it's in your hands: no-one else can do it for you. In these approaches, the therapist aims to work with you as an equal, to help you free your potential.
The Humanistic approach sees the person as a whole person - not just a mind that thinks, but a body that feels and has its own language, and a spirit that aspires beyond what can be seen, heard and touched. The process of change and growth may not just involve talking things out: it may involve body therapies such as massage, or learning T'ai Chi, or finding a way to express and explore spiritual or religious beliefs. Your therapist might only work with you on one aspect - for example you might just meet and talk with them - but if their approach is Humanistic they will probably be concerned not just with what is thought and said, but with how that finds expression in your body, and your health, as well as in other aspects of your life.
Gestalt
Gestalt therapists see human beings as designed for relationships - with the world around them; with other people; and with themselves. At any given moment we are at different stages with lots of different relationships: making new friends, leaving a job, discovering new things about ourselves - even simple things like feeling hungry, eating some dinner, feeling full, are a kind of relationship - to food.
Gestalt therapists aim to help people regain their passion for life, their capacity to enjoy the present, rather than worrying about the future, or dwelling over the past. They can help if you are finding it hard to "let go and move on", or if you feel lost, or pressurised.
Transactional Analysis (T.A.)
Sounds technical, but it's really quite straightforward and can be fun. TA can help you see how your relationships work with others and with yourself. It works from the theory that at any given moment a person is thinking, reacting and feeling from a particular "viewpoint": the Parent (nurturing, caring), the Adult (responsible, constructive), or the Child (creative, vulnerable). A healthy person moves freely and appropriately between these three "ego-states" as they relate to themselves and to others, in other words in their transactions, but most people find it easier to revert to one or other ego-state: this can block a healthy, flexible approach to life, experience and to others...
Integrative
A psychotherapist who describes him or herself as "Integrative" will try to be flexible about the way they work with you. Rather than taking a single approach (only using TA, for example) they will use whichever techinique is appropriate for the moment. They usually have their favourite style (mine is Gestalt) but know enough about others styles of working to be able to use them properly when needed.
This is quite a recent development in psychotherapy and takes the view that there isn't just one way to get to the point you're aiming for. It's more common in Humanistic and Person-Centred approaches, where many different therapeutic styles can be used together in a way that makes sense.
NLP
The current line of argument is that NLP isn't a kind of psychotherapy, but it sort-of fits in here. NLP was developed using some of the best techniques from other approaches, and has now become a system of its own.
It's basic idea is that the way we think and feel is expressed by the language we use; if we're not happy with the way we're thinking or feeling, then one way to change is by changing the words and expressions we find ourselves coming out with.
NLP is also useful for challenging our assumptions about the way life is, because it suggests that at least part of what we call "reality" is simply the way we look at what happens, or doesn't happen, to us. For example: two people may see a child running in the park - one person may think how lovely it is to see how happy and free the child is; the other may worry that the child is about to fall over and hurt itself. Same reality; different perceptions. NLP's particular strength is in giving a person the tools to distinguish what is real from what we might imagine to be real. In other words it can help in gaining perspective and a flexible approach to experience.
Person-Centred (or Client-Centred)
This is quite a lot like the Humanistic and Existential approaches, and they could be classed together. It works from the idea that, on the subject of your life, YOU are the expert! The therapist encourages you to recognise your own wisdom: deep inside you know what to do to change and become the person you really want to be: free, responsible, creative. The therapist's role is to offer a safe, affirming place where you can begin to see and engage this potential.
One kind of Person-Centred therapy is called Rogerian - after Carl Rogers who developed it. He belived that a therapist should do three things: be themselves; try to understand how the client feels; and not judge the client. He said that these are the core values in counselling and, today, most therapies hold - in one way or another - to them.
Psychodynamic/Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
Sigmund Freud
You remember Freud? All that stuff about dreams and what they really mean? We may have come to think of Freudian psychoanalysis as a bit old-fashioned and cranky, but for many people it has been a way into deeper understanding of their inner, unspoken feelings. Be aware, though: this kind of therapy is often very long term, and can feel less "personal" than other, more recent, approaches.
Melanie Klein
Melanie Klein's work developed from some of Freud's ideas, and has now become quite a distinct approach. It focuses on very early childhood experiences (being alone, being afraid, being angry) and how they still affect our understanding of the world as adults. Interesting, but again rather long term.
Object Relations
Brace yourself!! This is a psychoanalytical
theory. It sees a person's need to relate to others as being central
to how they develop as they grow up, and how they experience day to day life.
An object isn't a thing, or "object" in the conventional
sense of the word: in object relations therapy, an object is a person,
or a part of a person, or a symbol for either one or the other.
Because psychoanalysis focuses on the individual and his or her experience,
it looks at objects and relationships only from the point of view of a single
individual called the subject.
An object relationship can be to
either an external or an internal object.
An external object is an object which you recognise as being outside
yourself (a person, or an aspect of that person like their smile, or their eyes).
It is real right now and you are looking at it.
An internal object isn't real; it isn't in front of you right now - it's
an image of someone (or of an aspect of them) derived from what you remember
about them. It could be a memory of your father, or (a favourite example for
object relations therapists - don't ask me why!!) remembering your mother's
breast from when you were breast fed.
Object relations therapists sometimes talk about good objects and bad objects. This doesn't mean good or bad in any moral sense (like being a good person or a bad person). A good object is simply an object whom the subject loves, who is experienced as benevolent (it could be your grandfather who was kind to you); a bad object is one whom the subject hates or fears, who is experienced as malevolent (like an aunt you hated as a child).
Sounds complicated. Why is it important? An object relations therapist may be able to help you look at how you relate to people, and help you to think about the impact certain people (especially in your childhood) had on your life. That could help you to see how you build relationships now as an adult, and why some relationships either work or don't work.
Carl Jung
Wow! Just love it! Lots of very creative stuff about who we are and what our potential is; also stuff about our dreams and their meanings for us; very challenging and supportive, and very humanistic (see above). Jung used to follow Freud's ideas, but they had a big row and Jung then developed a much more human approach, exploring how people actually tend to respond to their problems in a basically healthy way - e.g. we're upset and we cry (Freud was much more into looking at what was wrong with a person and then trying to "cure" them). Good stuff.
Transpersonal
Transpersonal therapy looks at the bigger questions of life: Who am I? What am I on this earth for? Is there Someone or Something more? Some of this stuff was explored by Jung, but there are many, many other ways of exploring the aspect of ourselves which is open to the possibility of the greater in life. For some, transpersonal work will take the form of a spirituality; for others it will be about the mysterious themes or connections in their lives, or the greater meaning which they feel their life holds.
I'm very interested in transpersonal work, and find that often it presents clients with a sense of perspective on what it happening in their lives.