Types of Therapy: An A to Z List of Your Options

The world of therapy offers an array of possible treatment options.  Our Amazing Team at Light and Life Therapy includes specialties in numerous forms of therapy.  

A Through C

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is a form of CBT that focuses on helping people learn to accept their thoughts and feelings and commit to goals that support their values.  ACT can be effective in treating a variety of conditions, including: Anxiety, Mood, Eating Disorders, Substance use, and OCD.

Anger management focuses on helping people learn to recognize and manage feelings of anger and rage. During treatment, people learn how to limit their exposure to anger-provoking situations, but they also explore healthy ways of expressing their feelings and controlling angry outbursts.

Attachment therapy helps people understand how their earliest bonds with caregivers impact their relationships in adulthood. This approach can be helpful for people who experience trauma, neglect, or other difficult childhood experiences. The idea is to help adults get in touch with their inner child to heal wounds and hurts that continue to affect a person in the present.  Attachment therapy may help improve interpersonal relationships, emotional vulnerability, self-esteem, and communication in relationships.

Behavioral therapy involves utilizing conditioning processes to help change behaviors. It is rooted in the principles of behaviorism and involves techniques like rewards, punishments, flooding, desensitization, behavior modeling, and token economies to shape behavior. It can be helpful when focusing on specific problems and may be used to treat conditions such as anxiety, depression, phobias, and substance use disorders.

Bereavement therapy, also known as grief counseling, is designed to help people who have experienced the death of a loved one. Grief can lead to a range of physical and psychological symptoms that make coping and functioning more difficult. Bereavement therapy can help people work through their challenging feelings related to a loss.

Bibliotherapy involves using books and literature to gain insight into problems that a person might be facing in their own life. After discussing thoughts, emotions, or problems with a mental health professional, a therapist might recommend specific books to help people learn more about their problems and find solutions that might help.

Client-centered therapy, aka person-centered therapy, associated with humanist psychologist Carl Rogers is a collaborative, non-directive, and non-judgmental therapy. The therapist takes a position of unconditional positive regard, helping clients adjust their self-concept.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a type of therapy that helps people identify distorted, unhelpful thoughts that adversely affect emotions and behaviors. After identifying these patterns, people can challenge them and develop more adaptive ones.  It has been shown to be effective for a variety of conditions including:  Anxiety, Substance Use, Mood, Eating Disorders, and Phobias.

Cognitive processing therapy (CPT) is a type of CBT therapy designed to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Through psychoeducation, belief change, and skill development, people can let go of thoughts that keep them stuck on a traumatic experience.

Compassion-focused therapy (CFT) is an approach that utilizes compassion training and psychotherapy. It is designed to foster self-compassion leading to a variety of emotional and interpersonal benefits.

Couples therapy is designed to help romantic and intimate partners repair or improve their relationship. It can improve communication and connection and help couples learn how to deal with outside stress more effectively.

D Through I

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy that incorporates acceptance, mindfulness, and emotional regulation strategies.  DBT was originally developed to treat borderline personality disorder (BPD). However, it can also be useful with a range of other conditions, particularly those that involve problems with emotional regulation.  Among others, it can be used to treat conditions including: Anxiety, Mood, Eating Disorders, OCD, Substance Use, PTSD.

Eclectic therapy describes an approach many therapists use that involves drawing on many different therapy approaches during treatment. For example, a therapist may draw on behavioral, cognitive, DBT, and psychodynamic approaches.

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is a treatment that uses bilateral (left-right) eye movement stimulation to help people process and recover from the impact of traumatic memories. Research suggests that EMDR can help reduce the pain and emotional effects of those memories.13

Emotionally focused therapy (EFT) focuses on helping adults improve their attachment bonds. It is a short-term therapy that follows three main stages: de-escalation, restructuring, and consolidating. It can help couples who are struggling with conflict, distress and poor communication.

Exposure therapy is a behavioral approach that has people face their fears in order to gradually reduce feelings of anxiety. It can be an effective treatment for panic disorder, phobias, social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and aspects of PTSD.

Family therapy approaches are a type of therapy that can help individuals by improving communication, reducing conflict, and strengthening relationships between family members.  

Holistic therapy is an integrative, mind-body approach that incorporates techniques such as breathwork, hypnosis, guided imagery, mindfulness, and yoga alongside psychotherapy techniques such as CBT and psychodynamic therapy.  The goal of holistic therapy is to integrate traditional and non-traditional approaches to address the whole person, including physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual factors that affect a person's well-being.

Humanistic therapy is an approach that focuses on helping people achieve their goals and achieve personal fulfillment. It incorporates strategies such as unconditional positive regard and reflective listening to help clients build self-awareness and a positive sense of self.

Integrative therapy, sometimes called multimodal therapy, involves drawing on various therapeutic approaches to treat each person's unique problems. It involves combining many techniques and adapting them to suit the individual situation and problem.

Interpersonal therapy is an approach that helps people better understand how their thoughts and feelings can affect their relationships with other people. It is usually a short-term treatment and can help with problems such as depression, anxiety, and substance use problems.

J Through P

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) combines CBT with mindfulness to help people become more aware of their thoughts and feelings. This approach helps people become more self-aware, gain mental clarity, and let go of negative thoughts. 

Narrative therapy focuses on helping people become experts in their own life story, while helping them more effectively observe their own lives, behaviors and problems. By becoming experts in their own stories, people can live in ways that reflect their values, beliefs, and goals.

Play therapy utilizes play, such as painting, dancing, or games, to help children cope with emotional or mental challenges. It is typically utilized with younger children between the ages of 3 and 12.

Problem-solving therapy teaches problem-solving skills so that people can better tackle life's challenges. It can help with depression, anxiety, stress, substance use, and other problems that affect mental health.

R Through Z

Rational emotive behavior therapy focuses on helping people recognize and overcome irrational beliefs that contribute to mental health problems. It emphasizes acceptance while working to help people actively dispute and replace negative beliefs.

Reality therapy is a controversial therapy that rejects the idea of mental health conditions and suggests that all behaviors are the result of choices. It encourages people to take control of their lives by being accountable for their actions.

Regression therapy is a controversial and debated form of therapy that involves hypnosis to regress to an earlier point in time to understand how past events influence current functioning. Critics suggest that it can lead to false memories.

Relational therapy emphasizes relationships and explores how these connections influence an individual's well-being. It works to improve communication and connection to help people overcome unhealthy habits that might affect their relationships.15

Schema-focused therapy is a treatment for borderline personality disorder (BPD) that helps people with the condition change unhelpful thinking that contributes to symptoms. The goal is to change unhelpful underlying schemas, or pervasive thought and behavior patterns, to be more helpful and adaptive.

Sex addiction therapy combines psychotherapy and medication to treat sex addictions. It utilizes approaches such as CBT, exposure therapy, and couples therapy along with medications such as SSRI antidepressants or naltrexone to help people gain better control of their behavior.

Solution-focused brief therapy focuses on finding solutions to a person's current problems. It focuses on helping people use their strengths and motivations to figure out how to handle different situations.

Somatic therapy is a body-centric approach to treating PTSD and other conditions. It incorporates breathwork, dance, meditation, mind-body exercises, and talk therapy.

Strengths-based therapy is an approach based on positive psychology that helps people recognize their strengths, build resilience, and build their sense of self-efficacy. 

Supportive-expressive therapy is a form of psychodynamic therapy that helps people improve their self-control when dealing with substance use issues. Research suggests that it can be effective in the treatment of substance use disorders when used alone or combined with other approaches.16

Systemic therapy looks at the connections between the problems a person is facing, their behavior patterns, their relationships, and their life choices. Because all these areas are interconnected, changes in one area can also have resounding effects in other areas.

Transference-focused therapy is a treatment for borderline personality disorder that uses the relationship between a therapist and a client to help people change how they relate to other people. Therapists work with clients to create healthier relationships that support better well-being.

Trauma therapy helps people who have had traumatic experiences deal with the emotional aftermath. It may involve writing about these experiences, talking about their effects, or using exposure techniques to confront trauma triggers.

Teletherapy, or online therapy, involves providing therapy online through video conferencing, online chat, internet phone, email, or text messaging. This approach has grown tremendously in recent years thanks to its convenience and effectiveness.