Although all of the 'Schools of Psychological Thought' grew out of a wish to understand how the human mind and emotions work and, whilst some shared common threads (for example, the Humanistic and Transpersonal schools have a number of common themes related to belief in the concept of a true and authentic self) they mostly focused on helping individuals deal with psychological problems.
When people enter therapy they do not do so because they feel happy with life. People normally seek out a therapist because they are experiencing emotional or psychological issues that are causing some kind of problem in everyday life - for example, not being able to form relationships, lacking confidence or finding that painful past experiences are stopping them achieving their goals or ambitions. In this sense, psychological therapies and the schools of thought they originate from are aimed at fixing a problem.
Much emphasis is now placed on what is called 'evidence based practice' which simply means that therapies are called upon to evidence the fact that they work. It is now common, in some countries more than others, to provide a 'diagnosis' relating to the type of distress a client presents with. For example, someone involved in a road traffic accident finds that following this they cannot drive their car, experiences panic attacks and become depressed and is then diagnosed as suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Alternatively, someone who cannot stop crying feels there is no point to life, cannot face food and feels tired all the time may be diagnosed with Depression.
These 'labels' are commonly used to describe many types of emotional suffering. Some of the therapies resist these kinds of diagnosis as they believe that they label an individual in an unhelpful manner whilst others welcome them and model their interventions around them.
Mental Health is a growing area of concern in many countries and specialist Psychiatric Manuals are used to list a range of symptoms associated with a particular condition. The concepts of capturing diagnostic criteria to assist practitioners identify psychological problems date back as far as the early 1700's. Referrals for therapy from doctors and psychiatrists will usually be made to a therapist containing a diagnosis of one sort or another based on these two well known and globally used manuals. The success of the therapy is measured in terms of whether the individual recovers from whatever condition has been diagnosed.
Many health care systems now use evidence based practice as the criteria for recommending and funding a particular type of therapy for a particular type of psychological problem.
And now I'd like to invite you to claim your free E-Course "How to Develop your Counselling Practice" available at http://www.counsellingpracticematters.com/
Gladeana McMahon is listed as one of the UK's Top Twenty Therapists by the Evening Standard. An innovator, Gladeana is also one of the UK founders of Cognitive Behavioural Coaching and an internationally published author with over 20 books of a popular and academic nature on coaching and counselling to her name.
online psychology course degree in psychology