Have you been considering psychotherapy? These days, it’s not uncommon for people to talk to a therapist about problems that can seem overwhelming. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), more than 25% of American adults experience anxiety, depression, or another mental disorder each year. Others may need mental health support because of addiction, grief, job loss, relationship troubles, stress, or other issues. Some may be trying to lose weight, stop smoking, or cope with a serious illness. These problems can often be debilitating.
Are you searching for psychotherapy services near Austin, TX? Then, reach out to Santé Center for Healing today by calling 866.238.3154 or contacting our team online.
What Is the Goal of Psychotherapy?
Adjusting to changes in life can lead to emotional challenges that interfere with working toward life goals. Psychotherapy involves a process of exploring a client’s emotions, life circumstances, and values. By increasing the client’s understanding of themselves, their close relationships, and other important factors, this form of therapeutic care moves closer to the goal of improving the client’s overall quality of life.
Therapy sessions are tailored to a client’s needs and specific goals, examples of which include the following:
- Adjusting to injury or medical conditions
- Dealing with difficult life decisions
- Developing social skills
- Focusing on wellness and personal growth
- Improving communication skills
- Improving emotional regulation
- Managing excessive stress and tension
In summary, the goal of psychotherapy is to facilitate positive change in clients seeking better emotional and social functioning to improve their feelings of satisfaction and the overall quality of their lives. Psychotherapy helps clients live happier, healthier, and more productive lives.
How Does Psychotherapy Work?
Now that you know what the goal of psychotherapy is, it will be much easier to understand how this form of care works.
In psychotherapy, mental health professionals apply evidence-based techniques to help clients identify what they want to change in themselves, and then develop healthier, more effective habits. There are several approaches to psychotherapy — including cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), and other types of talk therapy — that help clients work through their problems.
However, psychotherapy is a collaborative treatment based on the relationship between a client and a therapist. Grounded in dialogue, psychotherapy should provide a supportive environment that allows a client to talk openly to a therapist who’s objective, neutral, and nonjudgmental. A client and a therapist need to work together, so it makes sense that this relationship must be a solid foundation for successful treatment.
By the end of a psychotherapy treatment program, the client will not only have solved the problem they went into therapy for but will also have new tools and skills to better cope with whatever mental health challenges arise in the future.
When Should You Consider Psychotherapy?
Because of the many misconceptions about talk therapy, many people may not want to try it, even though they know how psychotherapy works. Reluctance is certainly understandable. However, if you’re struggling with overwhelming emotions and environments, it could be time to seriously consider getting professional help.
Some people end up seeking psychotherapy because they’ve felt angry, anxious, or depressed for a long time. Others may want help dealing with certain factors that are interfering with their emotional, mental, and even physical health. This would include things such as a lifelong illness, a divorce, or the death of a loved one. Signs that someone could benefit from psychotherapy include the following:
- Always expecting the worst, being constantly on edge, and worrying excessively
- An overwhelming and prolonged sense of helplessness or sadness
- Difficulty in concentrating on carrying out everyday activities
- Problematic and harmful actions, such as addictive substance use
- Problems not resolved despite personal efforts and help from friends and family
Ready To Learn More About Santé Center for Healing’s Psychotherapy Services?
If you’re looking for psychotherapy services near Austin, TX, contact Santé Center for Healing today. Reach out to our team online or call 866.238.3154.
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Psychotherapy, often known as Talk Therapy, uses insight, problem-solving, reframing of cognitions and changes in behavior to bring about greater mental well-being. Successful psychotherapy also involves reaching three very important goals:
1. Response
2. Remission
3. Recovery
Problem is, many children and adults don’t reach all three – and this sets the stage for relapse of symptoms.
Learning more about response, remission and recovery will help you make the most out of psychotherapy.
Response
The first goal of psychotherapy is to get you to feel better.
This is clinically called response – and is defined as an improvement from the onset of your illness after psychotherapy begins.
Response is reached when, as a patient, you report less depressive symptoms, clinically meaningful improvement in mood, daily functioning, physical pain, and negative thinking. Getting to a response level will be easy for some. Generally, these adults and children report feeling better in a few sessions. For others, it can take weeks. And for those who experience treatment-resistant depression, response may not be achieved at all.
When it comes to attaining a response in psychotherapy, don’t compare yourself with another person’s experience. Instead, focus on your unique experiences with depression and set realistic goals with your therapist.
Remission
The second goal in treating your depression is to bring you to a full state of remission. Remission is clinically defined as the experience of being symptom-free from illness. This differs from response in that you not only report an improvement from when you started treatment, but you also describe the presence of well-being, optimism, self-confidence and a return to a healthy state of functioning.
It’s important to follow your treatment plan so you can achieve a full state of remission. Not doing so can lead to a partial remission – where relapse is likely to occur. A good takeaway here is if you’re still experiencing depressive symptoms, you have not reached full remission.
Partial remission signals the need to continue with your treatment for depression. This is where most children and adults with unipolar or bipolar disorders lose their way. They stop taking their medication or interrupt psychotherapy because they “feel better”… but in actuality, they haven’t achieved full remission.
Remission will be achieved at different times for different people. Again, don’t measure your journey to health against anyone else. Just work your treatment plan and be proud of the gains you make along the way.
Recovery
Recovery is clinically defined as the absence of symptoms for at least 4 months following the onset of remission. Recovery presents with periods of improvement and growth as well as with setbacks and stumbling blocks. So, essentially, you’ll have good days and you’ll have bad days. It’s important to monitor your depressive disorder by being mindful about your physical and emotional experiences – along with many of the other tools and techniques you’ve learned in psychotherapy. Also, it’s vital to keep up with your medication if that’s part of your treatment plan.
Research states that more than 50 percent of children and adults who have a mood disorder will not achieve recovery because they’re not consistent with their treatment plan.
Summary
Living with a moderate or severe mental illness requires consistent treatment and coordinated care. For those who experience treatment-resistant depression, alternative treatment plans will be created to deal with these unique challenges. But for others who have treatable depressive disorders, strive to make psychotherapy a priority. Aim to reach all levels of response, remission, and recovery.
Psychotherapy:
Adjusting to changes in life can result in emotional ups-and-downs that interfere with an individual reaching his/her life goals. Psychotherapy is a process of exploring one’s values, life circumstances, and emotions. By increasing your understanding of self, relationships, and other important factors, the goal is to improve overall quality of life. Therapy is tailored to your needs and specific goals and can focus on the individual or family. Your therapist will utilize various evidence based treatment strategies.
Psychotherapy goals include the following:
-
Adjustment to injury or medical conditions
-
Improving emotional regulation
-
Social skills development
-
Managing excessive stress and/or tension
-
Improving communication skills
-
Wellness and personal growth
-
Dealing with difficult life decisions
In summary, the goal of psychotherapy is to facilitate positive change in individuals seeking better emotional and/or social functioning to improve quality of life and overall satisfaction.
Psychotherapy, at its core, means the treatment of mental disorders by psychological means rather than medical means. However, the process is about so much more than just treatment.
The goals of the field of psychotherapy include strengthening the mind, enlarging the capacity of the conscious mind, enabling a person to use their full mental potential, bringing contentment and inner happiness to each individual, bringing concentration and an increased willpower to each individual, and developing self-confidence, tolerance, and clear thinking. In some goals of psychotherapy, psychologists believe that the work of the field is to bring unity and harmony to an individual, and to allow them to open doors that have likely been closed for a long time.
The doors that are intended to be opened by the process of psychotherapy include:
- Insight, where a therapist works with the patient to construct a narrative that makes sense of the patient’s background and predicament to help with understanding, and lend perspective to the individual.
- Dependency, and the process of advancing to a mature adult level of dependency, which respects that there is a balance of dependence that is require – we all need other people, but a level of independence should also be present.
- Control, of which many people who come for psychotherapy feel they need to regain within their life.
- Identity – psychotherapy progress involves ongoing efforts at identifying feelings, attitudes, and motivations.
- Self-esteem, which can be fragile even in the most confident of people. Psychotherapy progress is about helping people develop a realistic and accepting attitude towards themselves.
- Recognizing and handling feelings – in psychotherapy, the goal with this is to help people to develop ways of using emotional energy to problem solve.
- Ego strength, or one’s capacity to cope with life’s difficulties in a realistic manor. Psychotherapy teaches the ability to increase the ability to tolerate temporary states of destabilization.
In order for psychotherapy progress to happen, a therapist follows these goals and ideals to help a patient through their mental disorder by using these psychological means rather than medicine.
