Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a psycho-social intervention that aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions, primarily depression and anxiety disorders. CBT focuses on challenging and changing cognitive distortions and their associated behaviors to improve emotional regulation and develop personal coping strategies that target solving current problems. Though it was originally designed to treat depression, its uses have been expanded to include the treatment of many mental health conditions, including anxiety, substance use disorders, marital problems, and eating disorders. CBT includes a number of cognitive or behavioral psychotherapies that treat defined psychopathologies using evidence-based techniques and strategies.
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.
Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their gender identity—their personal sense of their own gender—and their sex assigned at birth. The diagnostic label gender identity disorder (GID) was used until 2013 with the release of the diagnostic manual DSM-5. The condition was renamed to remove the stigma associated with the term disorder.
Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) is a stress-related mental disorder theoretically happening in response to complex traumas, i.e. generally prolonged or repetitive exposures to a series of traumatic events, within which individuals perceive few or no chance to escape.
Dyadic developmental psychotherapy is a psychotherapeutic treatment method for families that have children with symptoms of emotional disorders, including complex trauma and disorders of attachment. It was originally developed by Daniel Hughes as an intervention for children whose emotional distress resulted from earlier separation from familiar caregivers. Hughes cites attachment theory and particularly the work of John Bowlby as theoretical motivations for dyadic developmental psychotherapy.
Child psychotherapy, or mental health interventions for children have developed varied approaches over the last century. Two distinct historic pathways can be identified for present-day provision in Western Europe and in the United States: one through the Child Guidance Movement, the other stemming from adult psychiatry or psychological medicine, which evolved a separate child psychiatry specialism.
In psychology, mentalization is the ability to understand the mental state – of oneself or others – that underlies overt behaviour. Mentalization can be seen as a form of imaginative mental activity that lets us perceive and interpret human behaviour in terms of intentional mental states. It is sometimes described as "understanding misunderstanding." Another term that David Wallin has used for mentalization is "Thinking about thinking". Mentalization can occur either automatically or consciously. Mentalization ability, or mentalizing, is weakened by intense emotion.
Child and adolescent psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry that focuses on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental disorders in children, adolescents, and their families. It investigates the biopsychosocial factors that influence the development and course of psychiatric disorders and treatment responses to various interventions. Child and adolescent psychiatrists primarily use psychotherapy and/or medication to treat mental disorders in the pediatric population.
Emotionally focused therapy and emotion-focused therapy (EFT) are a family of related approaches to psychotherapy with individuals, couples, or families. EFT approaches include elements of experiential therapy, systemic therapy, and attachment theory. EFT is usually a short-term treatment. EFT approaches are based on the premise that human emotions are connected to human needs, and therefore emotions have an innately adaptive potential that, if activated and worked through, can help people change problematic emotional states and interpersonal relationships. Emotion-focused therapy for individuals was originally known as process-experiential therapy, and it is still sometimes called by that name.
Mentalization-based treatment (MBT) is an integrative form of psychotherapy, bringing together aspects of psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, systemic and ecological approaches. MBT was developed and manualised by Peter Fonagy and Anthony Bateman, designed for individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Some of these individuals suffer from disorganized attachment and failed to develop a robust mentalization capacity. Fonagy and Bateman define mentalization as the process by which we implicitly and explicitly interpret the actions of oneself and others as meaningful on the basis of intentional mental states. The object of treatment is that patients with BPD increase their mentalization capacity, which should improve affect regulation, thereby reducing suicidality and self-harm, as well as strengthening interpersonal relationships.
Peter Fonagy, is a Hungarian-born British psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist. He studied clinical psychology at University College London. He is a Professor of Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Developmental Science Head of the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences at University College London, Chief Executive of the Anna Freud Centre, and a training and supervising analyst in the British Psycho-Analytical Society in child and adult analysis. His clinical interests center on issues of borderline psychopathology, violence, and early attachment relationships. His work attempts to integrate empirical research with psychoanalytic theory. He has published over 500 papers, and 270 chapters and has authored 19 and edited 17 books.
Attachment-based therapy applies to interventions or approaches based on attachment theory, originated by John Bowlby. These range from individual therapeutic approaches to public health programs to interventions specifically designed for foster carers. Although attachment theory has become a major scientific theory of socioemotional development with one of the broadest, deepest research lines in modern psychology, attachment theory has, until recently, been less clinically applied than theories with far less empirical support. This may be partly due to lack of attention paid to clinical application by Bowlby himself and partly due to broader meanings of the word 'attachment' used amongst practitioners. It may also be partly due to the mistaken association of attachment theory with the pseudo-scientific interventions misleadingly known as attachment therapy. The approaches set out below are examples of recent clinical applications of attachment theory by mainstream attachment theorists and clinicians and are aimed at infants or children who have developed or are at risk of developing less desirable, insecure attachment styles or an attachment disorder.
The Anna Freud Centre is a child mental health research, training and treatment centre located in London, United Kingdom. The Centre aims to transform current mental health provision in the UK by improving the quality, accessibility and effectiveness of treatment, bringing together leaders in neuroscience, mental health, social care and education. It is closely associated with University College London (UCL) and Yale University. The Princess of Wales currently serves as its royal patron.
Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT), also known as talking therapies is a National Health Service (England) initiative to provide more psychotherapy to the general population. It was developed and introduced by the Labour Party as a result of economic evaluations by Professor Lord Richard Layard, based on new therapy guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence as promoted by clinical psychologist David M. Clark.
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.
Reflective Parenting is a theory of parenting developed from the work of psychoanalyst Peter Fonagy and his colleagues at the Tavistock Clinic in London. Fonagy introduced the concept of “reflective functioning”, which is defined as the ability to imagine mental states in self and others. Through this capacity for reflection, we develop the ability to understand our own behavioral responses and the responses of others as a meaningful attempt to communicate those inner mental states. As Fonagy describes it, “reflective function is the… uniquely human capacity to make sense of each other”.
Trauma Systems Therapy (TST) is a mental health treatment model for children and adolescents who have been exposed to trauma, defined as experiencing, witnessing, or confronting "an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others". TST focuses on the child's emotional and behavioral needs as well as the environments where the child lives (home, school, community). The treatment model includes four components (skill-based psychotherapy, home and community-based care, advocacy, and psychopharmacology) that are fully described in a published manual. A clinical trial showed that TST is effective in improving the mental health and well-being of children who have been traumatized. TST has also been successfully replicated.
Child psychoanalysis is a sub-field of psychoanalysis which was founded by Anna Freud. Freud used the work of her father Sigmund Freud with certain modifications directed towards the needs of children. Since its inception, child psychoanalysis has grown into a well-known therapeutic technique for children and adolescents.
The adolescent community reinforcement approach (A-CRA) is a behavioral treatment for alcohol and other substance use disorders that helps youth, young adults, and families improve access to interpersonal and environmental reinforcers to reduce or stop substance use.
Andrew J. Gerber is an American psychoanalyst and the current president and medical director of Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Connecticut. His principal interests and research lie in studying the neurobiological bases of social cognition, particularly in relation to autism spectrum disorders and change in response to psychotherapy. He is a member of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychoanalytic Association and the Psychoanalytic Psychodynamic Research Society.
