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.
Occupational therapists (OTs) are health care professionals specializing in occupational therapy and occupational science. OTs and occupational therapy assistants (OTAs) use scientific bases and a holistic perspective to promote a person's ability to fulfill their daily routines and roles. OTs have training in the physical, psychological, and social aspects of human functioning deriving from an education grounded in anatomical and physiological concepts, and psychological perspectives. They enable individuals across the lifespan by optimizing their abilities to perform activities that are meaningful to them ("occupations"). Human occupations include activities of daily living, work/vocation, play, education, leisure, rest and sleep, and social participation.
Social constructionism is a term used in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory. The term can serve somewhat different functions in each field; however, the foundation of this theoretical framework suggests various facets of social reality—such as concepts, beliefs, norms, and values—are formed through continuous interactions and negotiations among society's members, rather than empirical observation of physical reality. The theory of social constructionism posits that much of what individuals perceive as 'reality' is actually the outcome of a dynamic process of construction influenced by social conventions and structures.
Occupational therapy (OT) is a healthcare profession that involves the use of assessment and intervention to develop, recover, or maintain the meaningful activities, or occupations, of individuals, groups, or communities. The field of OT consists of health care practitioners trained and educated to improve mental and physical performance. Occupational therapists specialize in teaching, educating, and supporting participation in any activity that occupies an individual's time. It is an independent health profession sometimes categorized as an allied health profession and consists of occupational therapists (OTs) and occupational therapy assistants (OTAs). While OTs and OTAs have different roles, they both work with people who want to improve their mental and or physical health, disabilities, injuries, or impairments.
Gestalt therapy is a form of psychotherapy that emphasizes personal responsibility and focuses on the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist–client relationship, the environmental and social contexts of a person's life, and the self-regulating adjustments people make as a result of their overall situation. It was developed by Fritz Perls, Laura Perls and Paul Goodman in the 1940s and 1950s, and was first described in the 1951 book Gestalt Therapy.
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.
Solution-focused (brief) therapy (SFBT) is a goal-directed collaborative approach to psychotherapeutic change that is conducted through direct observation of clients' responses to a series of precisely constructed questions. Based upon social constructivist thinking and Wittgensteinian philosophy, SFBT focuses on addressing what clients want to achieve without exploring the history and provenance of problem(s). SF therapy sessions typically focus on the present and future, focusing on the past only to the degree necessary for communicating empathy and accurate understanding of the client's concerns.
Narrative therapy is a form of psychotherapy that seeks to help patients identify their values and the skills associated with them. It provides the patient with knowledge of their ability to live these values so they can effectively confront current and future problems. The therapist seeks to help the patient co-author a new narrative about themselves by investigating the history of those values. Narrative therapy is a social justice approach to therapeutic conversations, seeking to challenge dominant discourses that shape people's lives in destructive ways. While narrative work is typically located within the field of family therapy, many authors and practitioners report using these ideas and practices in community work, schools and higher education. Narrative therapy has come to be associated with collaborative as well as person-centered therapy.
Salvador Minuchin was a family therapist born and raised in San Salvador, Entre Ríos, Argentina. He developed structural family therapy, which addresses problems within a family by charting the relationships between family members, or between subsets of family. These charts represent power dynamics as well as the boundaries between different subsystems. The therapist tries to disrupt dysfunctional relationships within the family, and cause them to settle back into a healthier pattern.
Feminist therapy is a set of related therapies arising from what proponents see as a disparity between the origin of most psychological theories and the majority of people seeking counseling being female. It focuses on societal, cultural, and political causes and solutions to issues faced in the counseling process. It openly encourages the client to participate in the world in a more social and political way.
Mary McCanney Gergen was an American social psychologist specializing in feminist studies women's studies and social constructionism. She is known for her contributions to the field of feminist studies, organization development, and social process.
Harlene Anderson is an American psychologist and a cofounder of the Postmodern Collaborative Approach to therapy. In the 1980s, Anderson and her colleague Harold A. Goolishian pioneered a new technique that is used to relate to patients within therapy through language and collaboration, and without the use of diagnostic labels. This approach to therapy places the patient in control of the therapy session and asks the therapist to focus on the present session and ignore any preconceived notions they may have. This approach was first developed for the use of family and mental health therapists, but has since expanded into a variety of professional practices such as organizational psychology, higher education, and research.
Lynn Hoffman was an American social worker, family therapist, author and historian of family therapy. Her mother, Ruth Reeves was a painter, Art Deco textile designer and an originator of the American Index of Design. She graduated summa cum laude in English literature in 1946 from Radcliffe College, and after editing psychology works, she started MSW studies in 1969 and specialized in family therapy.
Collaborative therapy is a therapy developed by Harlene Anderson, along with Harold A. Goolishian (1924–1991), in the US. It is intended for clients who are well educated in any field, or for those that have distrust of psychotherapists due to past negative experiences with one or more.
Sheila McNamee is an American academic known for her work in human communication and social constructionism theory and practice. She is a Professor of Communication at the University of New Hampshire and founding member, Vice President and board member of the Taos Institute. She has authored numerous, books, chapters, and journal articles. Her work focuses on appreciative dialogic transformation within a variety of social and institutional contexts including psychotherapy, organizations, education, healthcare, and local communities. She engages constructionist practices in a variety of contexts to bring communities of participants with diametrically opposing viewpoints together to create livable futures.
Kenneth J. Gergen is an American social psychologist and emeritus professor at Swarthmore College. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts from Yale University (1957) and his PhD from Duke University (1962).
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.
Collaborative language systems is a therapeutic approach largely based in contemporary hermeneutics, the study of interpretation as a way to produce understanding, while considering both context and cognition, as well as social constructionism. This approach involves a reciprocal relationship between both the therapist and client, through which the client works through his or her clinical problems using dialogical conversation with the therapist. The therapist and client work together, utilizing their own, individual knowledge and understanding of the issues, to conceptualize and illuminate the client’s problems and provide new context, meaning and comprehension to those problems based on the collaboration.
Cultural humility is the “ability to maintain an interpersonal stance that is other-oriented in relation to aspects of cultural identity that are most important to the [person].” Cultural humility is different from other culturally-based training ideals because it focuses on self-humility rather than being an other-directed "they/them" way of achieving a state of knowledge or awareness. It is helpful to see as others see; what they themselves have determined is their personal expression of their heritage and their “personal culture”. Cultural humility was formed in the physical healthcare field and adapted for therapists, social workers, and medical librarians, to learn more about experiences and cultural identities of others and increase the quality of their interactions with clients and community members.
Eve Lipchik is an Austrian-American psychologist. She was a member of the original team in the development of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT). The practice is a goal-directed collaborative approach to psychotherapeutic change that is conducted through direct observation of clients' responses to a series of precisely constructed interview questions. Lipchik is a certified member and approved supervisor of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, as well as co-founder of ICF Consultants, Inc., in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After retiring from active practice, Lipchik has taught, lectured and consulted in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia.
