Psychotherapy &Amp; Emotional Healing

Course overview

People seek out psychotherapy because they are experiencing powerful and painful emotions such as depression, anxiety, sadness, fear, or anger that interfere with effective day-to-day functioning. While some forms of psychotherapy focus intently on emotional experiences, all forms of psychotherapy are basically methods of learning that have as their goal some form of personal change, either to thinking (cognition), feeling (emotion) or acting (behavior), with the purpose of alleviating emotional suffering. This course, ?Emotional Healing: Psychotherapy? examines several of the most important systems or schools of psychotherapy in an attempt to clarify the art and science of psychotherapy as it is practiced today in the United States. It is important for all healthcare professionals to be knowledgeable about the field of psychotherapy in order to best help their patients with a wide spectrum of physiological and psychological problems. Healthcare professionals need to be able to make referrals to different types of psychotherapists based on the specific emotional problems a patient presents; this course will help them do so. The course next examines the person-centered therapeutic approach originally formulated by psychologist Carl Rogers with its focus on a self-directed growth process characterized by a genuine, nonjudgmental, and empathic relationship with the therapist. The concepts of congruence, self-regard, and unconditional positive regard are defined. Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is described next as a theory of personality and a method of psychotherapy developed by psychologist Albert Ellis. The theory?s central tenet is that one?s emotions are largely caused not by external events but rather by the individual?s own thoughts and beliefs about that event. The approach focuses on helping clients become more aware of their automatic thoughts and beliefs and changing them to more productive and less emotionally-arousing ones. Behavior therapy as a systematic approach to assessing and treating psychological disorders is presented next. It encompasses three different approaches known as applied behavioral analysis, a neobehavioristic mediational stimulus-response model, and social-cognitive theory. Characteristics common to all three approaches are described as are psychotherapeutic approaches and techniques used by each.