Suffering from feelings appears in a broad spectrum of intensity, from mild to severe. When distress is extreme, medication use can help make the situation safe, yet it is psychotherapy that is the standard treatment approach. No two patients are the same, and no two therapies are the same. Still, we know that two major types of psychotherapy benefit different sorts of problems. These overlap in some essential therapeutic aspects, such as the use of empathy. Yet, they differ significantly in others, such as the degree to which empathy will play a significant role. An understanding of the origins of emotional pain is also an important factor.
These psychotherapies are based on theories of normal and abnormal development in early and sensitive periods of a person's life. Psychodynamic Psychotherapy explores the connection between childhood and adulthood, character structure, history of interpersonal relationships, and psychological symptoms with ever-active forces inside the mind, conscious or unconscious. Psychoanalysis is a dynamic form of psychotherapy that requires more frequent sessions, a different set of techniques, and extended training for its practitioners. While several significant schools of theory developed since the 1900s, most practitioners today use a blend of theoretical approaches.
During treatment, important attention is given to the effects of early childhood neglect, abuse, emotional injury, and trauma. One crucial and significant notion is that emotional suffering in adulthood results from unresolved or poorly solved intrapsychic conflicts. Unmet basic emotional needs are believed to be the origins of the conflicts. The correlatives of these needs have been also localized by neuroscience to certain physical brain activities. Central is the difficulty one's mind has in negotiating a balance between what one wants to do, needs to do, and should do.
The emotionally painful conflict and compromises one has built over time to keep the conflict out of consciousness are repeatedly interpreted with the help of the therapist. Patients achieve gradual emotional and cognitive awareness of why specific patterns of thinking, feeling, and relating cause problems. By reappraising the past, the patient eventually habitually changes the acts in the present. And new learning shifts the future in a healthier direction.
Some of the primary goals are building healthy self-esteem and a cohesive self with lasting quality. Neuropsychoanalysis, a therapy modality that emerged in the mid-1980s, returned the focus to the brain as the organ of the mind. It promotes integrating neuroscience with all levels of mental life. While linking specific brain circuitry with psychoanalytic models of the mind, it brings forth a powerfully informative and dynamic understanding of why it is feelings we suffer from.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) was proven as helpful through rigorous scientific trials. It uses the premise that how a person perceives a situation is more closely connected to their maladaptive automatic thoughts and emotional reaction than the situation itself. This type of psychotherapy focuses on helping patients figure out what they want from life, teaches them new coping skills, and helps to reach set goals. Through manualized, structured exercises with the therapist and homework assignments, patients learn how to change their ways of thinking and behaving. This process leads to improved mood and a general sense of well-being.
Recommendations to supplement therapy with relevant readings, to think over what you have learned in the previous sessions, and to write down what you want to be discussed in future sessions are commonly used. In its various adaptations, CBT can help with conditions such as general stress, anger problems, depression, and anxiety - particularly in persons with high-functioning autism conditions, substance abuse, obsessive-compulsive disorder, insomnia, social and specific phobias, smoking cessation, and others. The course is time-limited, usually a one-hour session weekly for ten to 20 weeks.