What Is Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy, or personal counselling with a psychotherapist, is an intentional interpersonal relationship used by trained psychotherapists to aid a client or patient in problems of living.
It aims to increase the individual's sense of their own well-being. Psychotherapists employ a range of techniques based on experiential relationship building, dialogue, communication and behaviour change which are designed to improve the mental health of a client or patient, or to improve group relationships (such as in a family).
Most forms of psychotherapy use spoken conversation. Some also use various other forms of communication such as the written word, artwork, drama, narrative story or music. Psychotherapy with children and their parents often involves play, dramatisation (ie. role playing), and drawings, with a co-constructed narrative from these non-verbal and displaced modes of interacting. Psychotherapy occurs within a structured encounter between a trained therapist and client(s). Purposeful, theoretically based psychotherapy began in the 19th century with psychoanalysis; since then, scores of other approaches have been developed and continue to be created.
While some psychotherapeutic interventions are designed to treat the client using the medical model, many psychotherapeutic approaches do not adhere to the symptom based model of "illness/cure". Some practitioners, such as humanistic therapists, see themselves more in a facilitative/helper role. As sensitive and deeply personal topics are often discussed during psychotherapy, therapists are expected, and usually legally bound, to respect client or patient confidentiality. The critical importance of confidentiality is enshrined in the regulatory psychotherapeutic organisations' code of ethical practice.
