Finding A Therapist
What's the first step in finding a good therapist?
There are two things. One is that I think you really need to do your research. Check with people that you know who have had successful experiences with therapy. Luckily, now we have an internet that gives us much more information than we would ever have been able to have access to about a person's background, their biography, and their philosophy. Because there are so many different theories and therapies out there that you want to make sure a person has a really similar philosophy to yours about how people develop, how they change. It has to be somebody that feels like a good fit. So, on an intellectual level and also on an emotional level, you need to feel like you're home. Somebody that you can talk to, open up to, and who you feel like has the elements that you need to learn about in order for you to continue to grow.
What is pyschoanalysis?
The old school therapy is called analysis, psychoanalysis. And essentially that's the one that they used to do on Bob Newhart where, in the very old school you would be laying down on a couch and talking and the therapist would be sitting behind you, not even interacting with you, and just sorting of allowing you to identify the issues that you were wanting to deal with and as you sort of talked and outlouded those things, you would gain insight and you would purge whatever the dynamics were that had created the blocks or the concerns in the first place. Most of us don't typically do strict psychoanalysis, although we use those theories as a way to be more interactive and understand the dynamics of development, but they add now things like Gestalt therapy, which is a way to work through issues that identify a conflict from within. It's more like 70s where you'd be hitting pillows and talking to chairs and trying to really identify that there is a usually a conflict going on within a person. And if you can figure out what those two pieces are and what they both want for the individual, they, you have a way to be more overtly aware of the problem and can come to an understanding and reach a resolution differently than if it's just a conflict going on in your head.
What is behavioral therapy?
Other things are behavioral therapy and those pieces relate to the old work of like Skinner and learning theory so that they understand that there is a stimulus, there's a response, and a behavior that follows those that either create positive patterns of behavior or maladaptive patterns.
What is humanistic therapy?
Humanistic therapy, our psychology, is the Rogerian style of therapy from Carl Rogers. Those are also the subjects of many jokes about, “I hear what you're saying and I really understand.” It's establishing a report with someone and allowing them to feel supported and nurtured within the therapeutic environment, and that relationship then allows a person to grow and it's conducive to change.
What is cognitive-behavioral therapy-CBT?
Different kinds of therapy use different modalities to create happiness, or to teach someone to create happiness, really. And the specific technique that I like best is called cognitive behavioral restructuring, where you recognize what thoughts run through your head at any given moment, that then generate feelings, that then invite you to then do certain behaviors, and that then reinforce the thoughts, the feelings, and the behaviors in a chain link. So that when you intervene, because you getting a negative thought, or you're generating negative feelings, or you're doing self-defeating or acting-out kinds of behaviors, you can intervene at any of those three points, change the cycle so that the chain link becomes positive instead of negative, and create happiness as a result of that adjustment.
What kinds of clients would benefit most from cognitive-behavioral therapy?
Clients that are intelligent, and able to understand the concepts of the cognitive structuring really benefit from cognitive-behavioral therapy. It's an interesting process to use with people who also are motivated to do some work on their own, because these are strategies they can take home and they can employ in their own life, everyday. There are workbooks out there that help them do it. Frankly, I'm a very eclectic therapist, so I use elements of cognitive-behavioral, elements of gestalt, elements of humanism, elements of psychoanalysis. Because I think you have to tailor-make a therapy program to the individual that you're working with. Some people are not comfortable doing much emotional work in front of another person.
What kinds of clients would benefit most from pyschodynamic therapy?
Clients that are very intellectualized and who really enjoy learning about the nuances of their personality and who have more time to devote to therapy and analysis, like that theory because it's sophisticated. It's kind of east coast. So they seem to be more oriented toward really understanding all of the things that comprised the elements of their personality development and their childhood. They like that. They benefit from it because the insight really does help them make different choices. And certainly, having a safe space to come and just have an uninterrupted hour which is just focused on yourself is a luxury that people really feel comfortable with and benefit from.
What kinds of clients would benefit most from pyschiatry?
Clients that benefit from psychiatry are people who have more serious disorders that might benefit from medication, so if someone a needs a medication evaluation it is important and crucial that they go to a psychiatrists those are medical doctors as opposed to PhDs MSWs or MSTs or whatever so they need to do a full on neurological psychological medical evaluation to figure out if they need medication and psychiatrists work primarily with brain chemistry and neurology.
