Approaches
Counselling and Psychotherapy
Counselling and Psychotherapy are often considered to be interchangeable therapies that overlap in a number of ways. However, there are key differences.
Counselling usually refers to a brief treatment that centres around behaviour change. Whereas, psychotherapy focuses on working with clients on a deeper level, working to understand emotional problems and difficulties at the source, as opposed to managing symptoms of them.
Gestalt Therapy
A psychotherapeutic approach developed by Fritz Perls (1893–1970). It focuses on insight into gestalts in clients and their relations to the world. Gestalt Therapy is heavily embedded in the here and now and reliant on the therapeutic relationship.
Interpersonal Therapy
(IPT) is a time-limited, focused, evidence-based approach to treat mood disorders. The main goal of IPT is to improve the quality of a client's interpersonal relationships and social functioning to help reduce their distress.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
CBT can help with depression, anxiety, and a wide range of other problems. CBT is a form of psychotherapy that focuses on how a person's thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes affect their feelings and behaviors. CBT is embedded in the belief that unhelpful ways that people think can lead to psychological problems.
Mindfulness Practice
According to the Greater Good Science Center at Berkeley, mindfulness is:
“maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, through a gentle, nurturing lens.”
To take that definition a bit further, mindfulness requires a nonjudgmental acknowledgement and acceptance of our thoughts and feelings; acknowledging our feelings but judging them (e.g., providing a value judgment like “I shouldn’t be thinking that” or “That’s a bad thought to have”) would not qualify as practicing mindfulness.