Most often, clients come to psychotherapists with problems, they come when they feel bad. Since the problems of clients cause them discomfort and suffering, the main and natural task of the psychotherapist is treatment, alleviation of suffering.
Hence the widespread understanding of psychotherapy: psychological psychotherapy is a psychological treatment, a system of therapeutic effects on the psyche and through the psyche on the human body (see →).
However, modern psychotherapy is not limited to treatment, its tasks are much broader. Today, the boundaries of therapy are extremely blurred, under the brand and name of «therapy» a wide variety of things really happen: counseling, business, fraud, assistance in recovery or personal growth, philosophizing, sometimes entertainment, and often mutual exploration of the human soul.
- Psychotherapy as counseling
Psychotherapeutic counseling is one of the varieties of advisory work.
- Psychotherapy as an aid to recovery
Many therapists in the course of treatment naturally care about healing, about preventing future problems for the client, and about increasing the mental health of a person in the future. At the same time, psychotherapy does not always contribute to mental recovery, just as mental recovery can occur without any psychotherapy.
- Psychotherapy as a mutual exploration of the human soul
Psychotherapy can be used as a method of studying the human soul, as a source of interesting material, material for books and enrichment of human culture. This, in particular, was carried away by Z. Freud, K. Horney, E. Berne, I. Yalom and other talented psychotherapists.
- Psychotherapy as an aid in personal growth.
One of the most noble secondary, additional tasks of psychotherapy is to facilitate the client’s process of personal growth. Irvin Yalom in The Gift of Psychotherapy writes:
The most useful book (I read it as a student) for me was Karen Horney’s Neurosis and Human Development. And the most useful idea I found in this book was that every human being has a genetic propensity for self-actualization. If obstacles are removed, Horney believes, the personality will develop into a mature, fully realized adult, just like an acorn becomes an oak tree.
“Just like an acorn becomes an oak…” What a miraculously liberating and clarifying image! This position forever changed my approach to psychotherapy, gave me a new vision of my work: my task is to remove the obstacles that block the life path of my patients. I didn’t have to do all the work; I didn’t have to inspire the patient to grow, to inspire him with curiosity, will, lust for life, caring, loyalty, or the myriad other characteristics that make us truly alive. Not at all. The only thing I have to do is to identify and remove obstacles. Everything else, stimulated by the self-actualizing forces within the patient, would follow automatically.
At the same time, psychotherapy is not a kind of personal growth, and personal growth is not only psychotherapy, and most often not psychotherapy at all, although many psychotherapists are passionate about this.
- Psychotherapy as a business and fraud
It happens that (sometimes not quite consciously) the psychotherapist during the treatment process creates additional problems for the client, then the psychotherapy becomes endless, bringing the therapist the income that suits him. Created a problem — successfully solved it, in parallel creating the following problem. Etc. See →
Where are the boundaries of psychotherapy? We offer the following vision. Psychological psychotherapy in a broad sense is the most diverse activity aimed at working with psychological problems. Psychotherapy begins where the client has a problem and ends where the problem disappears. No problem, no psychotherapy. Actually, here is the boundary between psychotherapy and coaching, psychotherapy and healthy psychology. When people work with a psychologist not in connection with problems, but in connection with tasks, this is no longer psychotherapy.
Hurdling
A convenient metaphor can be used to show the difference between psychotherapy and related fields of applied psychology.
For example, a boy was born with a dislocation of the pelvic joint and has been limping for fifteen years. In the summer at the dacha, he made friends with a cheerful guy who was fond of hurdling, he looked at him, confidently said that it was a dislocation of the pelvic joint, all this is now being treated and gave the phone number of an orthopedist. The young man was on fire with the idea not to limp. Yes! This is the creation of motivation. Analogue — high-quality advertising.
The young man turned to an orthopedist, he underwent surgery, the joint was adjusted. Hooray! It is a therapy, a cure. An analogue in the field of the soul is psychotherapy. An analogue in technology is repair. Further see →
The tasks of psychotherapy and the history of the psychotherapeutic movement
The therapeutic movement has an interesting history, during which the tasks of psychotherapy have changed significantly. See →