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.
A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how individuals relate to each other and to their environments.
A professional association is a group that usually seeks to further a particular profession, the interests of individuals and organisations engaged in that profession, and the public interest. In the United States, such an association is typically a nonprofit business league for tax purposes. In the UK, they may take a variety of legal forms.
Counseling psychology is a psychological specialty that began with a focus on vocational counseling, but later moved its emphasis to adjustment counseling, and then expanded to cover all normal psychology psychotherapy. There are many subcategories for counseling psychology, such as marriage and family counseling, rehabilitation counseling, clinical mental health counseling, educational counseling, etc. In each setting, they are all required to follow the same guidelines.
Dance/movement therapy (DMT) in USA and Australia or dance movement psychotherapy (DMP) in the UK is the psychotherapeutic use of movement and dance to support intellectual, emotional, and motor functions of the body. As a modality of the creative arts therapies, DMT looks at the correlation between movement and emotion.
Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a form of alternative therapy aimed at treating trauma and stress-related disorders, such as PTSD. The primary goal of SE is to modify the trauma-related stress response through bottom-up processing. The client's attention is directed toward internal sensations,, rather than to cognitive or emotional experiences. The method was developed by Peter A. Levine.
The Australian Psychological Society (APS) is the peak body for psychology in Australia. The APS has more than 27,000 members, making it the largest professional body representing psychologists in Australia. The Society's Code of Ethics was adopted in 2007 and became the Code of Ethics for the profession in Australia in 2010 when it was taken up by the newly formed Psychology Board of Australia. The APS also provides members with recommendations of appropriate fees to charge for their professional services.
Supervision is used in counselling, psychotherapy, and other mental health disciplines as well as many other professions engaged in working with people. Supervision may be applied as well to practitioners in somatic disciplines for their preparatory work for patients as well as collateral with patients. Supervision is a replacement instead of formal retrospective inspection, delivering evidence about the skills of the supervised practitioners.
Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) is a licensure for mental health professionals in some countries.
The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) is a professional body for counsellors and psychotherapists practising in the United Kingdom.
The California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) is a non-profit 501(c) professional organization with approximately 30,000 members dedicated to preserving the ethical standards of Marriage and Family Therapists in California. The association was founded in 1964 by Dr. Dominick Amorelli, Dr. Elsie V. King, Dr. George L. McGhee, Allan M. Myerson, and Dr. Paul A. Verdier.
The Australian Counselling Association (ACA) is a non-profit, professional organisation that is dedicated to the counselling profession. ACA represents over 13,500+ Registered Counsellors and Psychotherapists in Australia. ACA is the largest peak body for counselling and psychotherapy in Australia.
In the United Kingdom, counselling is not under statutory regulation, and is overseen and supported by several organisations, none of which are officially recognised by the government.
In the United Kingdom there are several hypnotherapy organizations. Each one has a code of ethics and practice, seeking to protect the public and maintain professional standards. Over the years, the number of hypnotherapy organizations has proliferated, often associated with particular training schools. There has been a notable lack of co-operation between organizations in establishing any agreed public standard of training and code of practice for the hypnotherapy profession as a whole. However, progress is now being made in this area.
The British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC) is an association of training institutions and professional associations which have their roots in established psychoanalysis and analytical psychology. They bring together approximately 1500 practitioners of psychoanalytic and psychodynamic psychotherapy who as individuals become registrants of the BPC.
Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research (CFAR) is a psychoanalysis research, training and low-cost treatment centre located in London, United Kingdom. CFAR is a member organisation of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy. CFAR operates within the psychoanalytic tradition of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan.
The Australian College of Applied Professions (ACAP) is a registered training organisation and higher education provider that specialises in teaching Undergraduate and Postgraduate courses in psychology, counselling, social work, criminology, coaching and management. ACAP is accredited by the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA), the Australian Psychology Accreditation Council (APAC).
The Independent Practitioners Network (IPN) is an association of practitioners founded in 1994 working in the broad field of human development, especially counselling and the psychological therapies. It is based on a system of peer support and monitoring.
The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), infrequently spelt as the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency is a statutory authority founded in 2010 which is responsible, in collaboration with the Medical Board of Australia, for registration and accreditation of health professionals as set out in the Australian legislation called the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme. As of 2018, approximately 586,000 health professionals were registered with the AHPRA, containing 98,400 medical practitioners (which includes general practitioners, medical specialists and some hospital workers), and 334,000 nurses and midwives. This rose to 825,720 registered health professionals in 2021.
