One of the questions I am often asked is, “What actually happens in the different types of therapy?”
People imagine lying on a couch talking endlessly about their childhood, or they picture a therapist offering advice, solutions or reassurance. In reality, therapy is much more nuanced than that.
There are many different schools of therapy, each with its own way of understanding emotional distress and psychological change. Over the next few weeks I want to introduce some of the main approaches, not because one is better than another, but because understanding how they work can help you find the right support for you.
Today I want to begin with psychodynamic therapy, which grew out of the original psychoanalytic ideas developed by Sigmund Freud, widely regarded as the father of psychotherapy. Both approaches explore how unconscious processes, early relationships and past experiences shape our thoughts, emotions and behaviour. Psychoanalysis is the original, more intensive form of therapy. Psychodynamic therapy evolved from it and now draws on attachment theory, developmental psychology and neuroscience.
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