Types of psychotherapy - I.
Alright, if you zipped over here without reading anything else in this website, be warned: Some of what I say here may seem arbitrary or even outrageous without the background material. But, here it is.
As to distinctions among various therapies currently in vogue, I would like to offer the scandalous suggestion that it really makes little difference to you. Apart from behavior therapy, all successful courses of psychotherapy share the goal of increasing awareness, of insight (as described in Why Psychotherapy and What’s the cure; see also Ed - II, Ed, Evan, Ron - II). Yes, there are differences in how one attains that insight, but the important difference is between good and bad therapists, not between schools of therapy. Research has shown this rather consistently: It turns out that successful vs. unsuccessful therapy is the result of the quality, not the type, of psychotherapy.
What counts, then, is not the therapist’s theoretical orientation or technique, but whether what he says gets through your resistance and then "clicks" for you at a gut level. Period. If it does not, all his theory, expertise, advice, counseling, and coaxing will not lead to much change in your feelings and behavior. [Evan, Evan-II, Ron - II, Greg, Ed - II] This is why so many practitioners are eclectic; that is, they may have a theoretical orientation that is closest to their heart, but they believe in many systems and practice with a variety of techniques.
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