Satine
Well-known member
tl;dr version:
What do you lot think is the difference between the two?
Long version:
I'm a counselling student and am about to start my diploma. As part of my training I have to have therapy sessions for the duration so the other day I looked on an online directory of my local area for a therapist to call. Most of them listed psychotherapy as among their skills.
I've learned a little about psychotherapy. There is a lot to know about it and most of it I haven't learned, but what I know of it so far is that
psychotherapy was the first 'talking' treatment, designed by Freud who was originally a medical doctor, which meant that even once he'd started giving psychotherapy treatment he tended to see himself as the expert talking to the sick person rather than a facilitator meeting the client on equal ground to solve the problem together. (More modern counselling methods favour this equality between therapist and client rather than Freud's preferred authority) and was developed in Victorian times, when if you were anything other than a straight male it was assumed there was something wrong with you.
So far - and I might yet be wrong - I don't see how psychotherapy could survive a modernisation that would accept women and gays as basically healthy human beings.
Because of the above, I chose not to have a psychotherapeutic therapist.*
That got me wondering. I suspect I know more about psychotherapy than most because I've had to study it, at least a little. But what would most of the public guess is the difference between other forms of counselling compared to psychotherapy in particular?
I'm also curious because I can do the diploma I've signed up for but could also do an extra year on top which would be psythotherapy training. It might be a bit early for me to wonder this, but I'm wondering whether it would be worth it. Would potential clients see I was a psychotherapist and decide not to pick me?
* This isn't to say my judgement is right - psychotherapy is very common, so I'm guessing it has survived modernisation. I just don't yet understand how that can be, and what I currently know about it puts me off.
What do you lot think is the difference between the two?
Long version:
I'm a counselling student and am about to start my diploma. As part of my training I have to have therapy sessions for the duration so the other day I looked on an online directory of my local area for a therapist to call. Most of them listed psychotherapy as among their skills.
I've learned a little about psychotherapy. There is a lot to know about it and most of it I haven't learned, but what I know of it so far is that
psychotherapy was the first 'talking' treatment, designed by Freud who was originally a medical doctor, which meant that even once he'd started giving psychotherapy treatment he tended to see himself as the expert talking to the sick person rather than a facilitator meeting the client on equal ground to solve the problem together. (More modern counselling methods favour this equality between therapist and client rather than Freud's preferred authority) and was developed in Victorian times, when if you were anything other than a straight male it was assumed there was something wrong with you.
So far - and I might yet be wrong - I don't see how psychotherapy could survive a modernisation that would accept women and gays as basically healthy human beings.
Because of the above, I chose not to have a psychotherapeutic therapist.*
That got me wondering. I suspect I know more about psychotherapy than most because I've had to study it, at least a little. But what would most of the public guess is the difference between other forms of counselling compared to psychotherapy in particular?
I'm also curious because I can do the diploma I've signed up for but could also do an extra year on top which would be psythotherapy training. It might be a bit early for me to wonder this, but I'm wondering whether it would be worth it. Would potential clients see I was a psychotherapist and decide not to pick me?
* This isn't to say my judgement is right - psychotherapy is very common, so I'm guessing it has survived modernisation. I just don't yet understand how that can be, and what I currently know about it puts me off.
