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Psychotherapy is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome problems. Psychotherapy aims to improve an individual's well-being and mental health, to resolve or mitigate troublesome behaviors, beliefs, compulsions, thoughts, or emotions, and to improve relationships and social skills. Numerous types of psychotherapy have been designed either for individual adults, families, or children and adolescents. Certain types of psychotherapy are considered evidence-based for treating some diagnosed mental disorders; other types have been criticized as pseudoscience.
Clinical psychology is an integration of human science, behavioral science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development. Central to its practice are psychological assessment, clinical formulation, and psychotherapy, although clinical psychologists also engage in research, teaching, consultation, forensic testimony, and program development and administration. In many countries, clinical psychology is a regulated mental health profession.
Integrative psychotherapy is the integration of elements from different schools of psychotherapy in the treatment of a client. Integrative psychotherapy may also refer to the psychotherapeutic process of integrating the personality: uniting the "affective, cognitive, behavioral, and physiological systems within a person".
The Hakomi Method is a form of mindfulness-centered somatic psychotherapy developed by Ron Kurtz in the 1970s.
Mindfulness is the cognitive skill of sustaining meta-awareness on the contents of one's own mind in the present-moment without conceptual reification. The practice of mindfulness meditation refers to the recurrent training of one's attention to reorient whenever it acquiesces to its opposite, absent-mindedness.
Existential psychotherapy is a form of psychotherapy based on the model of human nature and experience developed by the existential tradition of European philosophy. It focuses on concepts that are universally applicable to human existence including death, freedom, responsibility, and the meaning of life. Instead of regarding human experiences such as anxiety, alienation and depression as implying the presence of mental illness, existential psychotherapy sees these experiences as natural stages in a normal process of human development and maturation. In facilitating this process of development and maturation existential psychotherapy involves a philosophical exploration of an individual's experiences while stressing the individual's freedom and responsibility to facilitate a higher degree of meaning and well-being in his or her life.
The Vipassanā movement, also called the Insight Meditation Movement and American Vipassana movement, refers to a branch of modern Burmese Theravāda Buddhism that promotes "bare insight" (sukha-Vipassana) to attain stream entry and preserve the Buddhist teachings, which gained widespread popularity since the 1950s, and to its western derivatives which have been popularised since the 1970s, giving rise to the more dhyana-oriented mindfulness movement.
Sati, literally "memory" or "retention", commonly translated as mindfulness, "to remember to observe," is an essential part of Buddhist practice. It has the related meanings of calling to mind the wholesome dhammas such as the four establishments of mindfulness, the five faculties, the five powers, the seven awakening-factors, the Noble Eightfold Path, and the attainment of insight, and the actual practice of maintaining a lucid awareness of the dhammas of bodily and mental phenomena, in order to counter the arising of unwholesome states, and to develop wholesome states. It is the first factor of the Seven Factors of Enlightenment. "Correct" or "right" mindfulness is the seventh element of the Noble Eightfold Path.
Tara Brach is an American psychologist, author, and proponent of Buddhist meditation. She is a guiding teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C. (IMCW). Brach also teaches about Buddhist meditation at centers for meditation and yoga in the United States and Europe, including Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California; the Kripalu Center; and the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies.
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is an approach to psychotherapy that uses cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) methods in collaboration with mindfulness meditative practices and similar psychological strategies. The origins to its conception and creation can be traced back to the traditional approaches from East Asian formative and functional medicine, philosophy and spirituality, birthed from the basic underlying tenets from classical Taoist, Buddhist and Traditional Chinese medical texts, doctrine and teachings.
Buddhism includes an analysis of human psychology, emotion, cognition, behavior and motivation along with therapeutic practices. Buddhist psychology is embedded within the greater Buddhist ethical and philosophical system, and its psychological terminology is colored by ethical overtones. Buddhist psychology has two therapeutic goals: the healthy and virtuous life of a householder and the ultimate goal of nirvana, the total cessation of dissatisfaction and suffering (dukkha).
Eastern philosophy in clinical psychology refers to the influence of Eastern philosophies on the practice of clinical psychology.
Although modern, scientific psychology is often dated from the 1879 opening of the first psychological clinic by Wilhelm Wundt, attempts to create methods for assessing and treating mental distress existed long before. The earliest recorded approaches were a combination of religious, magical and/or medical perspectives. Early examples of such psychological thinkers included Patañjali, Padmasambhava, Rhazes, Avicenna and Rumi.
Contemplative psychotherapy is an approach to psychotherapy that includes the use of personal contemplative practices and insights informed by the spiritual tradition of Buddhism. Contemplative psychotherapy differs from other, more traditional methods of counseling in that the therapist brings to the therapeutic relationship qualities of mindfulness and compassion in order to help clients access their fundamental goodness and natural wisdom. The practice of Contemplative Psychotherapy grew out of a dialogue between Tibetan Buddhist master Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Western psychologists and psychiatrists. This discussion led to the opening of the Contemplative Psychotherapy Department at Naropa University in 1978 by Edward M. Podvoll, a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and dedicated student of Trungpa.
Common factors theory, a theory guiding some research in clinical psychology and counseling psychology, proposes that different approaches and evidence-based practices in psychotherapy and counseling share common factors that account for much of the effectiveness of a psychological treatment. This is in contrast to the view that the effectiveness of psychotherapy and counseling is best explained by specific or unique factors that are suited to treatment of particular problems.
Susan Kaiser Greenland(born October 1, 1956) is an American author and teacher of mindfulness and meditation, practicing a state of present-moment awareness to develop overall attentiveness and social/emotional skills. Susan played a foundational role in making mindfulness practices developmentally appropriate for young people, and with her first book The Mindful Child she helped pioneer activity-based mindfulness. This technique is now practiced in American schools throughout the country to help children learn how to reduce and alleviate their stress levels.
Family therapy is a branch of psychotherapy focused on families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of interaction between family members.
Other-centred therapy is a particular approach used in psychotherapy and other therapeutic fields which is grounded in Buddhist psychology principles. The approach addresses the relationship between the self and the world through an investigation of perception, its conditioned nature and the possibility for change.
Reality testing is the psychotherapeutic function by which the objective or real world and one's relationship to it are reflected on and evaluated by the observer. This process of distinguishing the internal world of thoughts and feelings from the external world is a technique commonly used in psychoanalysis and behavior therapy, and was originally devised by Sigmund Freud.
References
- Didonna, F. (2009): Clinical Handbook of Mindfulness. London, Springer.
- Fryba, M. (1989): The Art of Happiness: Teachings of Buddhist Psychology. Boston, Shambhala. ISBN 0-87773-466-6
- Fryba, M. (1996): The Practice of Happiness - Exercises & Techniques for Developing Mindfulness, Wisdom, and Joy. Boston, Shambhala. ISBN 1-57062-123-3
- Germer, Ch. K.; Siegel, R. D.; Fulton, P. R. (2005): Mindfulness and Psychotherapy. London, Guilford Press.
- Nemcova, M; Hajek, K. (2009): Introduction to Satitherapy – Mindfulness and Abhidhamma Principles in Person-Centered Integrative Psychotherapy. Morrisville, Lulu.com. ISBN 978-1-4092-5900-8
- Vogt, B. (1998): Skill and Trust – The Tovil Healing Ritual of Sri Lanka as Culture-Specific Psychotherapy. Amsterdam, VU University Press.
