What is psychotherapy?

Psychotherapy is conducted with individuals, groups, couples and families. Psychotherapists help people to overcome stress, emotional and relationship problems or troublesome habits.

There are many different approaches in psychotherapy, or talking therapies, which include:

• Cognitive behavioural therapies
• Psychoanalytic therapies
• Psychodynamic therapies
• Systemic and family psychotherapy
• Arts and play therapies
• Humanistic and integrative psychotherapies
• Hypno-psychotherapy
• Experiential constructivist therapies

A psychotherapist may be a psychiatrist, psychologist or other mental health professional, who has had further specialist training in psychotherapy. Increasingly, there are a number of psychotherapists who do not have backgrounds in the above fields, but who have undertaken in-depth training in this area.