There are a large number of psychological therapies that can help people overcome their psychological problems. While some therapists use only one approach, others may use a mixture of different psychological treatments to meet the needs of their patients.

However, despite the diversity of therapeutic offerings, not all forms of psychotherapy have been shown to be equally effective ; some have much more empirical evidence in their favor, drawn from years of research on the effects they have on patients.

Not all psychotherapies are the same

The vast majority of people associate the figure of the psychologist with a person who writes down in a notebook everything a patient tells him or her while sitting on a couch. However, psychotherapy is not just listening to a person and giving him/her advice . A psychotherapist is a mental health professional with solid theoretical and practical training, and is specialised in the cognitive (thought), affective (emotions) and behavioural (behaviour) areas.

This means that psychotherapy is not simply “an art” based on the sensitivity and empathy of the psychologist and the therapeutic bond he or she creates with the other person. The effectiveness of the treatment depends, in large part, on the knowledge and technical skills of that professional, as well as the type of therapy he or she applies.

The most effective types of psychotherapy

In the world of psychology many theories and perspectives of therapeutic application coexist. In this article you can see the most effective types of psychotherapy , taking into account that the effectiveness has to do with the usefulness of each one of them when it comes to treating specific disorders: there are no therapies that serve for everything.

1. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is one of the most widely used psychological therapies today. This therapeutic model belongs to what is known as the second generation of behavioural therapies, and is characterised by the fact that it considers that abnormal behavioural patterns have their origin in the existence of a series of distorted and dysfunctional thought processes and patterns , which together with the learned behavioural patterns cause the patient great suffering.

Specifically, from this proposal it is understood that in order to generate therapeutic changes it is necessary to intervene both in the habits and routines that can be observed and in the thought patterns that shape our way of interpreting things and setting ourselves objectives.

Thus, the aim of this type of therapy is to modify beliefs, thoughts and dysfunctional habits with a series of cognitive and behavioural techniques. For example, training in social skills, expository techniques, modelling or cognitive restructuring, among others.

2. Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy

If I said earlier that cognitive behavioral therapy was in the group of therapies called second generation, Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is considered a third generation therapy. These therapies focus on dialogue and the person’s functional context, and seek acceptance and a non-judgmental attitude as a way of improving people’s emotional health.

The MBCT was developed by Zindel Segal, Mark Williams and John Teasdale, as an eight-week program for the prevention of relapses in patients with depression, emotional stress and anxiety. It combines meditation and mindfulness exercises with learning cognitive therapy skills, such as detecting and interrupting maladaptive thought patterns that lead to depression or anxiety.

3. Dialectical Behavior Therapy

This psychotherapeutic approach belongs to the category of Cognitive Behavioural Therapies and was specifically designed to intervene in cases of Borderline Personality Disorder , in the treatment of which it has been shown to be very effective.It combines elements of Mindfulness with the tools of cognitive-behavioral psychology (on which most of this proposal is based) and strategies for managing distress.

4. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Acceptance and commitment therapy also belongs to the third generation of therapy, and aims to create a full and meaningful life for the patient, accepting pain as something normal. It has its origins in Relational Framework Theory (RFT) and pays close attention to language and cognition.

Therefore, it understands language as something that has a positive potential for human beings, but can also create a lot of suffering. It focuses on self-discovery and clarification of values as essential elements in therapy. It also questions what is socially or culturally accepted, because it causes the patient an attempt to control his private events and causes him great suffering.

5. Systemic therapy

Systemic therapy is mainly used for family and couple problems (but also for individuals), as it is a more holistic and integrative approach, which takes into account the relationships between the members of a group. This is why a systemic therapist can work with several family members at the same time or with a couple, although he/she can also intervene in just one person, although the therapy will continue to focus on the area of personal interactions.

The therapy focuses on relationships within the family and the couple, and looks at how they interact and what their relational styles and communication patterns are, taking into account the different systems that make up their context. In addition, it is based on the constructivist current, which means that it places great emphasis on the way in which meaning is constructed from personal experiences.

  • To go deeper: “Systemic therapy: what is it and what are its principles?”

6. Brief Therapy

Brief therapy emerged through systemic therapy in the 1970s. It was at that time that the latter began to be applied to treat a single individual , without the whole family being present. This form of therapy is a brief, simple, but effective model that allows people to empower themselves in the face of change thanks to a series of procedures and techniques. The idea is not to spend time and effort on something that could have a quicker solution.

7. Interpersonal psychotherapy

Interpersonal psychotherapy is a therapeutic model devised by Klerman, Weissman and collaborators, and is based on the critical analysis of the social elements that influence the development of psychopathologies. It works on the connections between symptoms and current interpersonal problems, such as problems in relationships.

The focus of this form of therapy is on current social relationships and how expectations within these relationships may be causing pathological symptoms in a patient. Treatment involves solving relationship problems or finding new relationships or activities as compensation.

It has been particularly effective in intervening in cases of bulimia and binge eating disorder, as well as major depression. A variant of this, called Interpersonal and Social Rhythm Therapy, is used to treat patients with Bipolar Disorder.

8. Biofeedback

Technically, biofeedback is not so much a form of psychotherapy as a tool used in psychotherapy, and one that is more widely used. However, it is one of the most valuable resources that psychologists can use when intervening in certain problems.

Its application is relatively simple: it consists of making the person aware, in real time, of the psychological or physiological processes taking place in his or her body. In other words, a perception-reaction-perception loop is created which makes it easier for the person to adjust his behaviour (partly involuntarily) to what is desirable, in order to get back into balance.

Biofeedback has been shown to be particularly effective in treating chronic pain.

9. Training in relaxation techniques

In many cases, much of the usefulness of psychotherapy depends on how a person learns to manage his or her emotions and regulate his or her physiological state. In this sense, training through relaxation techniques is very versatile , since it can be applied in cases of chronic pain, phobias and many kinds of Anxiety Disorders.

On the other hand, we must take into account that anxiety problems are very frequent and that they are very easily capable of contributing to the appearance of other mental health disorders . Thus, this therapeutic tool can be used to prevent various situations that would wear down well-being

To know more about this therapeutic option, you can read the following article: “6 easy relaxation techniques to fight stress”.

10. Reminiscence therapy

This type of psychotherapy is widely used to treat cases of dementia and neurodegenerative diseases that affect memory and are in the early stages. For example, is very effective in patients with Alzheimer’s disease , since it helps to stop the symptoms (in the sense that it slows their progression).

Its role is to consolidate self-concept and reinforce the mental processes linked to the sense of one’s identity, stimulate language and improve self-esteem.