Approaches

The therapeutic treatment approaches will be defined for your review and consideration to assist you in deciding whether these modalities can help you to relieve problematic circumstances that you are considering working through in the therapy. Take the time to read through the following detailed descriptions of each of these approaches to determine if they fit your needs and more specifically understand how they can provide the necessary techniques and strategies to help you attain your goals and address your problems while comprehensively building a bridge between conflict and the resolution of your problems. The following approaches that are used in the individual, couple, or family sessions are the following:

Psychodynamic therapy : The focus of this therapy is making connections between the past and the present. The therapy provides a foundation to explore individual as well as interpersonal relationship dynamics. The structure of this type of therapy is short term or long term done on a weekly or biweekly basis, depending upon your needs. The therapy can be done with an individual, couple, or family. The amount of members present, depends on the presenting problem or the request of the client. The goal of the therapy is to increase the individual, couples, or families insight as well as improve healthy functioning, and develop an improved representation of the self and others that results in mature and healthy interpersonal functioning. The model helps the client move toward the true self and and have a balance between autonomous functioning and intimacy. The techniques and strategies used in psychodynamic therapy include :

 

• Addressing Resistances.
• Connecting your past to the present
• Working with transferential issues
• Emphasize a holistic understanding of the problem
• working through defenses
• Interpreting symptoms

Cognitive behavioral therapy : The focus here is on the present. The focus of therapeutic change is on the clients interpersonal functioning. The structure of this type of therapy is brief and focuses on the individual, couple, or family that are present in the session. The goal of this model is to increase the functioning and satisfaction of the individual, couple, or family. The focus of the therapy is to address the cognitive processes underlying certain behaviors. This form of therapy helps the client to restructure and evaluate their belief system while also regarding the expectation in resolving the presenting problem. The techniques and strategies used in cognitive behavioral therapy are the following:

• Cognitive restructuring
• Reframing
• Modifying faulty core beliefs
• Exploring dysfunctional interpretations
• Identify misperceptions
• Improve reality testing
• Behavioral rehearsal
• Social skills training
• relaxation

Gestalt therapy: The focus is on the present. The model is holistic and integrates affective, sensory, cognitive, interpersonal and behavioral factors. The focus of therapeutic change occurs by encouraging and guiding the client to experiment with new behaviors for the purpose of having a better understanding. The stance of the therapist is to guide the individual, couple, or family to behavioral change by cultivating an increase in awareness. Gestalt therapy explores patterns of contact and awareness in the individual, couple, or families environment; including biological, intrapsychic, interpersonal, transpersonal, as well as social variables as experienced by the client and therapist. The gestalt model explores what is experienced by the client. This form of therapy fosters the development of a clear figure from the ground perspective, making sense of the space in which an individually, couple, or family functions. The techniques and strategies used in gestalt therapy are the following:

 

• Increasing awareness
• Develop behavioral tools
• Observation
• Improve accuracy of perceptions

Structural therapy: The focus of the therapy is on the present. This form of therapy is interested in the context in which the client is a part of. This type of therapy uses spatial and organizational metaphors to describe problems and identify solutions. This model suggests that couples and family problems are best understood in terms of transactional patterns. The therapy suggests that in order for their to be a change in one or more individuals there must be some change in the context in which the problems are embedded. Structural therapy is type of intervention which the therapist is directive and helps to change dysfunctional patterns. The techniques and strategies used in structural therapy are the following:

 

• Enactment
• Unbalancing
• Tracking
• Improve boundary functioning
• Change transactional patterns
• Emphasize reorganization

Strategic therapy: The focus is here is on the present. This form of therapy is interested in eliminating undesired maladaptive behaviors. Changing specific aspects of the system that maintains problematic behaviors is the main focus of this form of therapy. This type of therapy uses therapeutic techniques to help the couple or family abandon symptomatic behaviors. The therapy is employed to change interactional patterns that are maintaining the problem. Strategic therapy is a type of intervention that aids clients in evaluating and examining their belief systems, as a way to encourage them to establish new choices. The techniques and strategies used in strategic therapy are the following:

 

• Paradoxical intervention
• Circular questioning
• Assigning tasks
• Change dysfunctional interactive patterns
• Address power struggles
• Encourage empowerment