What is psychotherapy?

There are multiple forms of psychotherapy.  Cognitive and behavioral therapy are used very successfully to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder but many of these techniques can also be utilized to assist anyone.  Role playing and psychodrama have been used to assist people in reframing a problem.  Supportive therapy is a type of therapy that generally involves assistance walking through and managing a problem or set of problems they find particularly burdensome.  Insight-oriented therapy allows people to have a better idea how their past can influence their current reactions to our present situation.  Mentalization-based therapy allows people to be aware of their feelings and internal reactions so that they can put these feelings into words rather than actions.  It also allows people to be aware of how their behaviors can impact others.

Psychodynamic psychotherapy usually includes a combination of all of the above when needed.  It is a wonderful tool to help people feel understood and comfortable enough to share what they are too fearful to share otherwise.  With this, they can understand how they recreate patterns in relationships and what it is that motivates them to continue engaging in these often unhelpful patterns and behaviors.  In this way, they are empowered to make choices that make sense and enrich their lives instead of being destructive.

Psychotherapy is a conglomerate of different techniques including education, support, exploration, behavioral observations, and making connections between present behaviors and past influences. This way, the thoughts and emotions that go along with those thoughts can be understood.  We need to understand them in order to change our behaviors.

The end goal of psychotherapy is the ability to change your behaviors and make choices that will help lead to a personal sense of health and happiness. Many people beat themselves up over their inability to control their behaviors.  Friends and family members will give advice like, “Stop doing that,” or, “get over it already,” or even at times make suggestions or try to take over your life and make decisions for you.  IF IT WAS THAT EASY TO CHANGE YOUR BEHAVIOR YOU WOULD HAVE DONE IT ALREADY!!!!  But you can’t because you’re stuck.  In psychotherapy we try to figure out together what is keeping you stuck.

Medications can also be a very helpful adjunct.  In fact, recent studies have proven that medications can help promote new connections in the brain.  These connections then become stronger and more extensive through psychotherapy.

How do I get the best outcome from my therapy? 

Show up.  Say whatever comes to mind.  Just spit it out.  Give it time.  It takes often times six months or more to let the defenses down enough to do some of the real work.

Why should I get treated NOW???  Can’t I just wait until it gets better?  Can’t I just “buck up” and “get over it?”

This is a really common question.  There are very good reasons to start sooner than later.

Unfortunately, many of the decisions we make in life are similar to those that we have made in the past.  I have been asked several times in my practice:  isn’t doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result the definition of insanity?  NO!!  It is the definition of being human.  We repeat what we know and what we are familiar with.  Theorists believe that we are doing the same thing over and over again so that we can fix it and get a different outcome. Repetition makes us better at solving a problem or playing an instrument. Repetition REINFORCES NEURONAL CONNECTIONS.  But if we play the instrument incorrectly over and over again, we will continue to play it wrong until someone corrects us.  With this correction, we continue to fall back into old habits with time and we need reinforcement to correct us again and again.  This way we will learn to play the instrument correctly, even if it takes time to do so. 

So in essence, each time that we try to engage in an intense relationship, we do the same thing and get the same results over and over.  There is nobody there to correct us. 

In addition, further research repeatedly points to the way that our mental health influences our physical health.  We are just beginning to understand how that works in different organs and with different endocrine systems.  While the standards in this country are quite high for medications (we do not want to create more “morbidity and mortality” aka illness and death), we have yet to realize in this country just how much morbidity and mortality we are creating in ourselves by not treating our mind.  Please give your mind the credit it deserves!  Neurons in our brain control everything in our body.  I will be happy to provide you with further information about this research if so desired.  And in specific incidences, evaluating the influence your mindset has on your health may also be an essential part of your treatment.