Psychotherapy: What to Know Before You Go

Psychotherapy: Let’s Define it!

Psychotherapy is a general term for treating mental health problems by talking with a psychiatrist, psychologist or other mental health provider. (Mayo Clinic)

Psychotherapy isn’t as intimidating as it sounds; It’s just the technical term for talk therapy, psychosocial therapy, counseling and plain ole’ therapy. There are many approaches to choose from based on your specific needs or mental health issues. Psychotherapy, or PsyT, can treat multiple different disorders such as anxiety, mood, schizophrenia, eating disorders, substance abuse and personality disorders.

Although psychotherapy is used to treat multiple different mental health issues, our general goal is for our clients to gain better coping skills for everyday life. Specifically, it can help you learn how to overcome negative thoughts.

PsyT Can Help You through general, life Stressors like:

• Coping with major life changes

• Conflict resolution

• Anxiety or stress relief

• Insomnia

• Regulating your emotions

• Recovering from multiple types of abuse

• Acceptance and resilience with physical health issues

• Intimacy Issues

How to start psychotherapy:

To start, you will need to find a therapist that accepts your insurance and who’s specialty fits your specific need(s). Second, you should prepare for your first session with the issues you are struggling with and would like to resolve. Similarly, come up with some goals that are tailored to the specific issues you wish to address in therapy.

Obviously you and your therapist will dig-in further with your issues, but it helps to have a general idea going in. Based on your issues, your therapist will be able to decide what type of psychotherapy approach is best for you.

At Soma, we also believe in psychotherapy that treats the root causes. Subsequently, we often recommend and provide trauma therapy so that we can treat mental health concerns at their roots vs. simply “weeding” the garden with coping skills.

We’ve already discussed the aliases of psychotherapy. Let’s discuss the two major types:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is “a form of psychotherapy that focuses on modifying dysfunctional emotions, behaviors and thoughts by interrogating and uprooting negative or irrational beliefs.” (Psychology Today) In turn, the client will be able to replace these negative thoughts with positive ones.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is “a type of psychotherapy — or talk therapy — that utilizes a cognitive-behavioral approach,” according to John M. Grohol, Psy.D. DBT helps you manage stress and regulate your emotions better.

Trauma Therapy is a mental health treatment performed by a trauma-informed therapist to treat someone who has been affected by a traumatic event in their past. At Soma Therapy, we believe that trauma treatment is paramount and we have numerous options for holistic healing. These options include Internal Family Systems, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing.

Final Thoughts to Consider before starting PsyT:

• Don’t expect instant results. Everyone is different. Your particular needs may constitute 2 months of weekly sessions for you to feel healed. On the other hand, you may require 2 years of bi-weekly sessions to feel truly healed.

• Be ready to tell your therapist everything. They need a true insight into your recent past as well as your intimate thoughts and feelings. Similarly, remember that therapy is a partnership between you and your therapist.

• Be diligent in the “homework” your therapist gives you between sessions.

• Give it a fair shot, but don’t be afraid to tell your therapist that something isn’t working for you.