Therapeutic Approaches

Cognitive Behavioral (CBT) is a type of psychotherapeutic treatment that helps patients understand the thoughts and feelings that influence behaviors. CBT is commonly used to treat a wide range of disorders including phobias, addiction, depression and anxiety.

Cognitive behavior therapy is generally short-term and focused on helping clients deal with a very specific problem. During the course of treatment, people learn how to identify and change destructive or disturbing thought patterns that have a negative influence on behavior.

Existential Psychotherapy is a powerful approach to therapy which takes seriously the human condition. It is an optimistic approach in that it embraces human potential, while remaining a realistic approach through its recognition of human limitation. Falling in the tradition of the depth psychotherapies, existential therapy has much in common with psychodynamic, humanistic, experiential, and relational approaches to psychotherapy.

Family Systems Therapy is a branch of psychotherapy that works with 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. It emphasizes family relationships as an important factor in psychological health.

Holistic Therapy is based on psychosynthesis, a technique that addresses the physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional person as a whole. As a form of healing, holistic psychotherapy strives to address the symptoms of psychological and emotional distress that result from anxiety, depression, and other emotional issues. However, this method of therapy diverges from traditional psychotherapy in the method used to combat and correct these issues. Holistic therapy focuses not on the behaviors and thoughts that present from specific issues. Rather, this form of therapy concentrates its attention on the relationship people have with their world and how it is expressed through their sense of feeling, thinking, and being.

Humanistic Therapy is founded on the belief that moral and ethical values and intentions are the driving forces of our psychological construct and directly determine our human behavior. This value-oriented approach views humans as inherently driven to maximize their creative choices and interactions in order to gain a heightened sense of liberty, awareness, and life-affirming emotions.

Integrative Psychotherapy is an assimilative psychodynamic approach that combines different therapeutic tools to fit the needs of the individual client.

Psychodynamic Therapy focuses on unconscious processes as they are manifested in a person’s present behavior. The goals of psychodynamic therapy are a client’s self-awareness and understanding of the influence of the past on present behavior. In its brief form, a psychodynamic approach enables the client to examine unresolved conflicts and symptoms that arise from past dysfunctional relationships and manifest themselves in the need and desire to abuse substances.

Other Terms

CAGS stands for Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study, a certificate earned after the receipt of a Master’s degree.

Psy.D. stand for Doctor of Psychology, Psy.D., a professional doctoral degree intended to prepare graduates for practice in psychotherapy and psychological testing.