Psychotherapy: How it Works and what Therapist do

The relationship between therapist and patient

Psychotherapy is carried out by the targeted work with person experiencing emotional stress and interpersonal conflict or who is unable to achieve success and experiences depression. This work is carried out by a trained professional psychologist and his aim is to help people understand those internal processes that prevent them from effectively operating in different spheres of life – an efficient work, spend their leisure time and engage in meaningful relationships. The main characteristic forms of this work is the systematic use of the relationship between therapist and patient to identify the reasons that hinder the establishment of contacts at emotional level as well as concentration on internal processes that are manifested in the expression of thoughts, feelings and attitudes toward the therapist and other significant persons.

A brief description of psychotherapy

This definition allows us to see difference from the usual talk and other treatments. The distinctive features of psychotherapy are:

1. the purpose of the psychologist, is to eliminate deviations in the function of client or make him function more effectively.
2. the foundation of psychotherapy is the theory of behavior and scientific knowledge to guide its process and results;
3. the main fact in psychotherapy focuses on internal processes such as self-determination and its installation on interpersonal relationships;
4. therapeutic relationships are understood as carried out by appropriate techniques of learning (except the social relationships).

So, for psychotherapy is characteristic: illness or personality disorder; the accepted roles of therapist and patient; the use of certain methods and an improved function of the client. Every element – personality disorder, role function, psychotherapeutic techniques and the result – may be the subject of a research. The proposed definition is based on the assumption that the internal processes (including thoughts, feelings and installation) and external behavior (actions, relationships and interactions between people) are related to each other.

In the proposed definition lay the following assumptions concerning the development of personality. First, it is normal that people grow and develop feeling optimism and believe in themselves. They are capable of forming relationships of trust and cooperation and respect the freedom of others. Secondly, the history of personal development (including parental and family relations, constitutional features and impact of the cultural environment) determines how the person perceives herself and try to adapt to life and form interpersonal relationships. In the third place is the deterioration of interpersonal relationships and disturbances in the adaptive mechanisms are experienced as a feeling of illness. The fourth fact is the method of correcting the state where occurs a psychotherapeutic intervention. These assumptions suggest that the goal of psychotherapy is an effective function of the man.

Task of psychologist

The main task of psychologist is to create an atmosphere and working relationship that can encourage the client to work with those aspects of his personality, interpersonal relationships and attitudes that interfere with his spontaneous, efficient operation. The relationship between psychologist and client is on the first place and gives the customer the opportunity to see how his perception of himself, the learned interpersonal interactions and attitudes interfere in time of adaptation.

The changes occurring in the course of psychological counseling, are often the result of the client experience of how he learned the previous installation and interaction with therapist. The client tries to communicate with his therapist different and cultivated new or modified ideas, attitudes and behavior regarding to other relevant people. There are three important phases in the development of psychotherapeutic process:

1. formation of a working alliance;
2. establishment the focus of psychotherapeutic work;
3. ways to complete psychotherapeutic work and cancellation of the working alliance.