Psychodynamic

Psychodynamic theorists believe that a person’s behavior is determined by the psychological forces that the people are not aware of. These forces are called dynamic. The forces react with each other causing behavior, emotions, and thoughts to happen. This therapy is a one on one experience with a therapist. The therapist encourages the person to express their emotions, thoughts and feelings in an open manner. The therapist guides the patient to make positive changes in their life. A benefit to this type of therapy is that it’s long term. This therapy helps to find the root cause of a problem, and equip them with the knowledge and suggestions to enable them to cope with further difficulties. Psychodynamic therapy helps to uncover the unconscious content in the client’s mind to alleviate tension. Psychodynamic therapy helps with depression, anxiety, panic, and stress. This therapy is good for people who have long term issues in their past.

Cognitive therapy helps people to recognize and change faulty thinking processes. Therapists believe that the client can overcome their problems if they develop a new way of thinking. Therapist’s help clients recognize negative thoughts and guide them to try out new interpretations. One advantage is that cognitive therapy is very instructive. They help the patient understand how to counsel themselves. This therapy is short term. This focuses on client goals and it’s structured. The cognitive model helps treat depression, panic disorders, social phobias, and sexual dysfunctions.

I would recommend psychodynamic therapy if my friend needed long term help and cognitive if they needed short term help. Either use of each therapy ultimately is the person entering into the therapies preference. Other factors that would help decide which type of therapy would be better is the amount of time commitment the person is willing to contract to and the cause of the depression. Choices in therapy could also be selected by the cause of the depression. Cognitive therapy would be good for treatment of a short term issue such as a sudden loss of their home. Psychodynamic therapy would be good if the depression was caused by deep seated issues that were formulated early on in childhood.