Guide to Psychotherapy and Counselling in mental illness

Psychotherapy helps when you are done with your mental condition and feel detached. You might have been going through a terrible situation where you find yourself helpless and direly wanting to discuss your messed life with a counselor. But eventually, you get something temporary relaxing, and you forget to have a word with the therapist. But still, the problem you were facing is there and unavoidably making you feel low. Here it would help if you had counseling.

So hurry up and book your appointment with the counselor. But, if you have the therapy session for the first time, you need to read the complete guide comprising all the necessary details about psychotherapy. It will help you efficiently access psychotherapy according to your needs and condition.

Table of Contents

When do I need Psychotherapy?

You might have a question when do I need psychotherapy? It doesn’t mean that your problem is unsolvable, but you are not clear if your problem is worse or not. So, the below mentioned can be the situation when you may need therapy.

Something was bothering you for a long time, and you failed whenever you try to solve the problem.
Something that you find hard to discuss with your friends because they are directly involved with the situation.
A problem that is getting on your nerves, causing depression and anxiety.
Anything you have done wrong in your past is getting your nightmare.
Involvement of negative people causes harm to your relationships or family life.
Work stress from your workplace.
Relationship traumas from unstable situations.
Abused childhood traumas cause the problem of boosting your confidence and personal development.

All the problems mentioned earlier can solve if you try your luck with the therapist. Don’t let your situation cross the boundaries where any other person suggests you have counseling. However, only go to counseling when you feel about going for it.

Stages of Psychotherapy Process

The psychotherapeutic process starts when the individual thinks about meeting with the therapist. And it ends where the individual finds the solution to the problem. The whole process includes three stages that are mentioned below.

Stage 1: Indication of psychotherapy

As the name implies, the first stage of therapy starts when you contact the therapist and finalize the contract of treatment. It’s a proper checkup with the counselor where you provide all the necessary information to the counselor, and he diagnoses the linked type of therapy. It is a stage of counseling where the counselor digs into the patient’s mental condition. He conceptualizes the state of the psyche and social and behavioral problems of patients. The therapist’s objective is to provide essential affection and a comfort zone to the patient.

Stage 2: The stage of Change

From the start of the therapy, it would be helpful to know that Change requires time and consistency. Although, it is the stage you come to after completing three-to-seven sessions. Mainly, the patients observe improvement after seven psychotherapy sessions, but unfortunately, some people give up after only three sessions when they find no improvement. On the flip side, when the situations redirect even after the seven sessions, the conceptualization process must be done again to ensure the correct data of the patient’s psyche state. The treatments should be up to date according to the requirements.

Stage 3: Conclusion of Psychotherapeutic Process

The conclusion is the last stage of the therapy and the most productive phase. Here, the patient can practice the skills and exercises learned during the treatment. It includes mental health exercises, behavioral changes activities, personality development, personal grooming, and overcoming traumas. At this stage, a person can solve their problems and be stable enough to face issues that may occur in the future. Additionally, the date of the last session with the therapist discuss in the previous phase.

Types of Psychotherapy and Counselling

Getting information about the types of psychotherapy may help you identify which one you’re going through?

1. Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic therapies

Psychologists discover the theory of psychoanalysis, then make a therapy to cope with it. The idea says that the human psyche has been divided into three functions mentioned below.

The mental satisfaction is the fellow of the unconscious of undeveloped sexual desires, the aggressive and negative feelings, and the dependency on other human beings.
The other function is the superego, which deals with subconsciously developing the system of living standards and revoking societal norms.
The last function is the ego that develops self-respect and deals with the sense of self mindfulness to facilitate ourselves.

Psychoanalysis therapy was inaugurated as a defensive force to treat anxiety, stress, and depression disorders. It makes people aware of unconsciousness, deprivations, unproductivity, and recurring emotional and behavioral patterns. Solely, psychiatrists introduced psychoanalysis to discover the root problems of mental conditions and solve them. Whether it’s a worse experience or dynamic Change, the ultimate goal of psychoanalysis is to make all unconscious conscious. At the same time, psychodynamic therapy is the treatment through the interaction and relationship between the therapist and patient. The psychotherapist focuses on the patient’s problem-solving and stress relieving skills to treat them efficiently.

2. Behavioral Therapy

Behavioral therapy is an umbrella of all psychotherapeutic approaches because it covers mental disorders’ sizeable personal development area. Behavioral therapy treats different types of behaviors that come under destructive personality disorders. Causes of behavior changes vary, but the symptoms are usually identical, so the initial stages of treatment go the same. For example, the first phase of therapy is to diagnose the type of disorder or behavior Change and then dig into deep information about the causes, background traumas, and moral behavior. Once get enough information to proceed with the counseling, the therapist focus on providing affection to the patient. The main goal of Behavioral therapy is to install positivity, serotonin, and optimistic thoughts in an individual’s brain and eliminate the unwanted behavioral terms. The outcome of behavioral therapy is productive and exclusively useful to reinforce the personal development and grooming of the individual.

3. Cognitive Therapy

An individual needs cognitive therapy when he behaves in alternative to what he thinks. Psychiatrist says that cognitive disorders are dysfunctional thought that cause dysfunctional emotions. The causes of mental disorders are severe depression and anxiety when the individuals have no control over their thinking and behaving styles. Cognitive therapy includes the perspectives of meditation and mindfulness. And aware patients about how they can control their thoughts, emotions, feelings, and behavior to cope with the anxiety and depression. It also helps to overcome other psyche issues and physical health problems. Meditation itself is a vast process where the individual can find an exclusive comfort zone that is far away from depression and stress.

4. Humanistic Therapy

Humanistic therapy is the widespread psychotherapeutic counseling solely inaugurated to treat people by boosting their personal growth. It helps where people find hurdles or difficulties while processing self-grooming or independency. Humanistic therapy doesn’t focus on the drawbacks and issues of the people but is the bedrock of the unique and potential abilities of the person. Mostly, humanistic therapy centers on people having inferiority complexes, lack of confidence, or having unwanted assumptions about themselves. It stresses the people’s positive attitude and helps them accept the way they are so; they can live their lives happily. The most common example of Humanistic therapy is when a person recognizes his abilities to perform what he wants.

5. Integrative or Holistic Therapy

It is a type of therapy when psychiatrists don’t rely on a single approach or treatment for the disorder but open their policies to have traditional and untraditional therapies for the patient. Mental health is different from medical health. Sometimes it requires therapy out of the way as the situation demands. It is good to not stick only to the limited treatments but endeavor with different methods to achieve the productive consequences.

Benefits of Psychotherapy

If we choose psychotherapy, we may overcome the problems rapidly instead of getting stressed day by day, spoiling our medical and mental health. According to the research, the people who had psychotherapies lead their lives more functionally than those who say no to counseling.

Counseling increase the brain’s ability to release more serotonin, which further produces positive changes in personal growth. It also reduces the chances of mental disorders and lowers the risks of medical health issues. In short, mental health therapies are the premium package to reinforce the personal developmental system of Human beings. Energy and work satisfaction can meet the desired goals if you practice the exercises your therapist prescribed you. You may overwhelm with the improvement once you are done with the therapy because it will change your entire life by bringing incredible changes and constructive consequences.

Final Word

If you are planning to go for psychotherapy, prepare your mind so that you will not get improvement until you take seven sessions of starting. Don’t get disheartened or discouraged because everything requires time. The things that need time are the most productive and long-lasting. So, the hoping should be the first step of getting therapy.