What is Psychotherapy?

Every culture has its own form of emotional healing, often conducted by shamans, priests, and other spiritual leaders. The field of psychotherapy, by which two or more people engage in a collaborative, healing relationship emerged formally during the time of Freud.

Over the past 125 years, psychotherapy has evolved tremendously and tends to look very different from its classical roots. During Freud’s time, patients lay on the couch and engaged in free association. The psychoanalyst began with a fixed model of development, while sitting out of sight, and making an occasional interpretation. This model involved the therapist as the expert authority who presumably understood the patient’s unconscious and problems better than the patient did.

Since Freud’s era, an explosion of different schools of psychotherapy has occurred—as many as 250 currently, with new ones emerging continually. Each has its own theory about why people develop problems and act in self-defeating ways, as well as how to promote healing and growth. An important development over time has involved moving away from the therapist as the ultimate authority to the client. After all, each of us has such a different background that no single theory of development applies to all. Because of our uniqueness in background and culture, each person can best speak for ourselves—to say what we’re feeling, what our problems are, and what feels most fitting as solutions.

A second important development has been an increased understanding of the role the body plays—both as the seat of our unconscious minds and as the key to making changes to ingrained habits. We must honor our bodies as the starting place for change. Unless we take care of ourselves by ensuring we’re in a safe environment, eating well, getting enough sleep, and engaging in regular exercise, we work against our own desire to make changes emotionally and behaviorally.