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PGDCP19

Psychotherapy is a treatment for emotional and mental disturbances using psychological techniques, aiming to modify behavior and promote personal growth. Its objectives include changing maladaptive behaviors, improving interpersonal skills, and resolving inner conflicts. The ultimate goal is to alleviate symptoms and help patients regain self-confidence and a fulfilling life.

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10 views10 pages

PGDCP19

Psychotherapy is a treatment for emotional and mental disturbances using psychological techniques, aiming to modify behavior and promote personal growth. Its objectives include changing maladaptive behaviors, improving interpersonal skills, and resolving inner conflicts. The ultimate goal is to alleviate symptoms and help patients regain self-confidence and a fulfilling life.

Uploaded by

abhisheksingh231566
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We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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PSYCHOTHERAPY: MEANING AND OBJECTIVES OF

PSYCHOTHERAPY

COURSE: CLINICAL ASSESSMENT AND INTERVENTION


Paper VII (PGDCP; SEM II); Unit III
By
Dr. Priyanka Kumari
Assistant Professor
Institute of Psychological Research and Service
Patna University
Contact No.7654991023; E-mail- [email protected]
PSYCHOTHERAPY: MEANING AND OBJECTIVES OF
PSYCHOTHERAPY

Psychotherapy is the treatment given to mentally ill and


emotionally disturbed people through psychological techniques.
It is also called clinical intervention because in this method
clinical psychologist use their professional capacity and try to
influence and bring given changes in the behaviours of mentally
ill and emotionally disturbed people.
Definition of psychotherapy

Wolberg (1967): “Psychotherapy is a form of treatment for


problems of an emotional nature in which a trained person
deliberately establishes a professional relationship with a
patient with the object
• of removing, modifying or retarding existing symptoms,
• of mediating disturbed patterns of behaviour, and
• of promoting positive personality growth and development.

(Rotter): “Psychotherapy … is planned activity of the


psychologist, the purpose of which is to accomplish changes in
the individual that make his life adjustment potentially happier,
more constructive, or both.”
J. D. Frank (1982) elaborates this general theme as follows:
“Psychotherapy is a planned, emotionally charged, confiding interaction between a
trained, socially sanctioned healer and a sufferer. Psychotherapy also often includes
helping the patient to accept and endure suffering as an inevitable aspect of life that
can be used as an opportunity for personal growth.”

The psychodynamic approach to therapy focuses on unconscious motives and conflicts


in the search for the roots of behaviour (Shedler, 2010). It likewise depends heavily on
the analysis of past experience. The roots of this perspective reside in the original
psychoanalytic theory and therapy of Sigmund Freud.

Fisher “Psychotherapy is a planned and systematic application of psychological facts


and theories to the alleviation of large variety of human ailments and disturbances,
particularly those of psychogenic origin”.

J. D Page “Psychotherapy means treatment of mental disorders especially


psychoneurosis by psychological techniques”.

Thus psychotherapy is the systematic application of techniques derived from


psychological principle, by trained and experienced professional therapists, for the
purpose of helping psychologically troubled people.
Objectives of Psychotherapy

1. Psychotherapy aims towards, changing mal adaptive behaviour


pattern.
2. Minimising or eliminating environmental condition that may be
causing or maintaining such behaviour.
3. Improving interpersonal and other competences.
4. Resolving handicapping and disabling inner conflicts and
alleviating personal distress.
5. Modifying inaccurate assumption about oneself and one’s
world and fostering a clear cut sense of oneself identity and
opening of pathways to a more meaningful and fulfilling
existence.
The chief objective of psychotherapy is to rid the patients of
symptoms which make his life a burden to him, and it is the duty
of the psychiatrists to help the patients regain his self-
confidence and to strengthen his personality so that he can
solve his own problems and adjust with the environment.
The Ultimate goal and some mediate goals of psychotherapy

Ultimate goals- The ultimate goal is what the psychologist wants to


achieve at last.
Some of the ultimate goals are
1. Removing the symptoms.
2. Freeing the person to be self-actualizing.
3. Restoring earlier level of functioning.
4. Helping the patient find personal meaning and values.

Mediate goals- They are not less important than ultimate goal. The
mediate goals define the needs which are necessary to move the
patient towards ultimate goal.
1. Releasing pend-up feelings.
2. Conditioning or reconditioning of particular responses.
3. Examining ones values and concepts.
4. Muscular relaxation.
5. Becoming aware of unconscious impulses.
According to Sundburg and Taylor- The purpose/objective or goal
of psychotherapy:
1. Strengthen the patient’s motivation to do the right thing.
2. Reducing emotional pressure by facilitating the expression of
feeling.
3. Releasing the potential for growth.
4. Changing habits.
5. Modifying the cognitive structure of the person.
6. Gaining self-knowledge.
7. Facilitating interpersonal relations and communication.
8. Gaining knowledge and facilitating decision making.
9. Altering or changing the bodily states.
10.Altering states of consciousness.
11.Changing the social environment.
It is helpful to view therapeutic approaches in these terms
before considering psychoanalysis, client-centered therapy and
other systems. These purposes do not correspond in any one-to-
one fashion with the approaches of different schools. Rather,
they are themes which run through different therapeutic
systems, though one or another may be emphasized in each
case. They also describe different patients or with the same
patients at different points in the therapeutic process. Thus, a
therapist attempting to alter the cognitive structures of a person
in order for him to rectify distorted perceptions and beliefs may
still find it necessary to encourage emotional release and/or
enter directly into attempts to change the patient’s social
environment.
Thank You

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