What Really Happens in Psychotherapy?

Often times we are not aware of our thoughts and our feelings, let alone aware of how those thoughts and feeling are impacting our behavior.  Three of areas of our inner life that we need to understand and monitor are:

• Thoughts and feelings
• Levels of anxiety
• Defenses

Thoughts and feelings are often difficult to detect, especially if they are painful or upsetting.  The reason that they are difficult to identify is that we tend to cut off access to them by utilizing defenses.  When painful thoughts and feelings start to come up, they make us uncomfortable.  This uncomfortableness is what we call “anxiety.”  Anxiety is the “warning” signal we experience when our thoughts and feelings are too painful or upsetting to experience.  When we get anxious, we use mechanisms to shut off those uncomfortable feelings.  These mechanisms are called Defenses. Defenses are mechanisms that we use to block the painful feelings and thoughts from coming to the surface and into our awareness.  When we block them off, our anxiety goes away.  Unfortunately, this cycle provides only temporary relief and nothing really changes.  Oftentimes, as a result, feelings of which we are unaware become the driving forces in our lives, leading us to behave in non-productive or even self-defeating ways just to avoid those painful thoughts and feelings.

However, in psychotherapy, by learning to identify our thoughts and feelings and then learning to deal with them directly, we can break up the non-productive cycles and no longer have our feelings control us.  With successful restructuring of this cyclic process, we then become in charge of our feelings, reduce or eliminate our anxiety and no longer have to use non-productive or even self-defeating behaviors.

Signs of an Anxiety Disorder

Anxiety disorders can affect anyone.  The signs of an anxiety disorder may include:

• Endless checking or rechecking actions.
• A constant and unrealistic worry about everyday occurrences and activities.
• Fear and anxiety that appear for no apparent reason.

Anxiety disorders include the following:

• Panic Disorder: a sudden, uncontrollable attack of terror that can manifest itself with heart palpitations, dizziness, shortness of breath, and an out of control or terribly frightening feeling;
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder: excessive anxiety and worry that last for at least six months accompanied by other physical and behavioral problems;
• Social Phobia: a persistent fear of one or more situations in which the person is exposed to possible scrutiny of others;
• Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: repeated, intrusive and unwanted thoughts that cause anxiety, often accompanied by ritualized behavior that relieve this anxiety;
• Post-traumatic Stress Disorder: caused when someone experiences a severely distressing or traumatic event. Recurring nightmares and/or flashbacks and unprovoked anger are common symptoms.

HELP IS AVAILABLE.  According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, 90 percent of people with emotional illnesses will improve or recover if they get treatment.

What is Psychotherapy?

Patients often come to psychotherapy feeling that their distress will continue indefinitely. Psychotherapy provides an explanation for the distress that is adaptive — that is, the patient understands that he or she can do something to improve his or her situation. Psychotherapy  leads the patients into healthy actions and improves aspects of their lives, whether it is thinking more positive thoughts, creating better relationships, more appropriately expressing emotions, or enacting other positive changes.

Are there different types of psychotherapy?

There are many specific types of psychotherapy, each with its own approach.  Often they are divided into groups depending on the goals of treatment.  Supportive psychotherapy involves areas such as crisis intervention, marital therapy and communication issues.   By focusing on a person’s existing strengths and coping mechanisms, through the use of encouragement, clarification of thinking, and support, counseling will often resolve specific conflicts with which the individual is struggling.  Dynamic or insight-oriented psychotherapy is used to change, in positive ways, the ways individuals copes with their thoughts and feelings, resulting in increased capacity to experience feelings, be more intimate in relationships, and gain control over the impact that their thoughts and feelings have on their behaviors.