The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Mental Health Therapy

Do you suffer from depression, anxiety, and/or any other mental health issue? If so, you are definitely not alone! Depression alone affects about 300 million people in the world. If and when you are ready to accept help, mental health therapy is one of the most important tools available to help.

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Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. (46.6 million) experiences mental illness in a given year.
National Institute of Mental Health

Psychotherapy, or talk therapy, means talking to a licensed therapist in a safe and confidential setting.

The goal of talk therapy is to explore your behaviors and feelings and to learn new ways of coping with your problems.

Therapy can be used alone or along with medication. It all depends on what you need.

Mild to moderate depression can be effectively treated with talking therapies, such as cognitive behavior therapy or psychotherapy. Antidepressants can be an effective form of treatment for moderate to severe depression but are not the first line of treatment for cases of mild depression.
World Health Organization

Did you know that there are many different varieties of mental health therapy? Many people don’t think they need therapy and that they can manage their mental health on their own

I’ll explain the 5 categories of talk therapy and give some specific examples in this post. First, let me help clear up some common misconceptions about mental health providers.

Psychologist vs Psychiatrist

There is a lot of confusion out there about the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist.

What Is A Psychiatrist?

A psychiatrist is a trained medical doctor. Psychiatrists go through medical school and train in general medicine, just like your primary care doctor.

After they finish their residency for their general medical license, they go on for another 4 years of training specifically in psychiatry.

Psychiatrists:

Specialize in mental health including substance abuse disorders
Diagnose and treat mental health disorders
Prescribe medications
Make medication treatment plans
Change and adjust medication doses if needed

What Is A Psychologist?

A psychologist is a specialist in psychology. (Shocking, right?)

Psychologists:

Cannot prescribe medications
Are NOT medical doctors, although a psychologist can earn a Ph.D./doctorate degree in psychology
Use talk therapy (psychotherapy) to help you
Work with you on your emotional and mental health problems
Teach and increase beneficial behavior
Decrease and work with you toward eliminating harmful behaviors

Requirements for a psychologist to practice as a mental health therapist include the following:

Bachelor’s degree in at least one of the following categories:
- Behavioral science (deals with human action)
- Social science (includes psychology)
Master’s degree in mental health counseling
Internship
Licensing exam(s)
Mental health certificate
Continuing education to stay current on mental health trends, information, and treatment

Who Can Benefit From Mental Health Therapy?

Therapy can benefit anyone and everyone, not just if you have a mental health disorder.

How Can YOU Benefit From Mental Health Therapy?

If you suffer from a mental health disorder, there’s a therapist out there for you.

The most common mental health disorders are depression and anxiety.

There are many different kinds of mental health therapy. You can benefit from therapy and learn ways to cope with your mental health disorder.

Benefits include:

Stress reduction
Learning ways to cope with your problems
Learning new ways to improve relationships with others
Sorting out your feelings
Coming up with goals and plans for how you will move forward with your life

There are so many more benefits that I can’t even begin to list them all in this one post. All I can say is, why not give it a try? What have you got to lose? If therapy isn’t for you, then at least you’ll know.

Personal Experience

I chose to write a post on therapy because I have been in therapy off and on throughout the years for my depression.

I also have binge eating disorder, which is a mental health disorder too. Working on recovery is the main focus right now in my therapy sessions.

If you’re interested, you can read about my eating disorder:

The 5 Categories Of Mental Health Therapy

There are many different approaches to talk therapy. All types of talk therapy fall into one of these 5 categories:

1. Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic Therapy

Psychodynamic therapy was developed from psychoanalysis and is generally used long-term.

This category focuses on changing behaviors, thoughts, and feelings from the past that have caused problems in your life.

Once you sort through and figure out what the problem is, your therapist can help you work through the causes of your behavior.

The goal of this therapy type is to figure out what the unconscious reasoning/meaning is behind your problems and to work toward and reach a resolution.

Your therapist will help you find patterns in your thoughts, emotions, and beliefs in order for you to learn more about yourself.

Therapists tend to use open-ended questions in this kind of therapy to let you talk about what’s on your mind.

Examples of Psychodynamic Therapy

Dream analysis therapy
- Used to uncover unconscious thoughts
- To discover the hidden meaning of your dreams
Free association therapy
- Talk freely about anything that comes to mind
- The therapist sometimes reads a list of random words out loud and you say the first thing that comes to mind with each word
- Repressed memories are often uncovered in this type of therapy
Transference therapy
- Taking feelings about someone in your past or present and directing those feelings toward your therapist
- Is used to work through past traumas

Psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy are most helpful for:

Depression
Anxiety disorders
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Borderline personality disorder
Sexual problems
Identity disorders
Phobias

2. Behavior Therapy

This kind of therapy focuses on what learning can do in developing normal and abnormal behaviors.

Have you ever heard of a little thing called Pavlov’s dogs? The dogs eventually began to drool in response to the sound of a bell. The bell signaled it was time to eat/their food was ready. This was a study in behavior therapy.

Behavior therapy is used for a wide range of mental health illnesses including:

Depression
Anxiety disorders
Eating disorders
Substance abuse problems
Schizophrenia

Examples Of Behavior Therapy

Exposure therapy is used for a phobia that you needed to work through. You are exposed to what you’re afraid of (your phobia), in order to work through and past your fears.

CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy):
- Focused on the present
- You work toward specific goals
- Is usually only used for a short period of time.

Your therapist will help you by using CBT to focus on how your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are connected. By positively changing one part of the chain, the other 2 parts are positively influenced.

CBT includes:

Education about your mental illness or problem and how the illness or problem affects you.
Learning strategies and skills to help change your thoughts, behaviors, and feelings.
Using the new skills you learn to help you cope with problems that might come up in the future.

It was proven in a study that cognitive-behavioral therapy over six months time actually strengthened brain connections in the study members. The stronger brain connections showed improved symptoms long-term and better mental health recovery.

DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy)
- CBT-based, but focused more on emotions and social interactions.
- Used if you are dealing with extreme emotions and unsafe behavior.
- The goal is to help you get your emotions to a more manageable level.

This type of talk therapy was originally used for people with borderline personality disorder but is now used to help other types of mental illnesses too that are more difficult to treat, specifically self-harm.

3. Cognitive Therapy

This kind of therapy focuses more on what you think instead of how you feel.

Cognitive therapists think that when you have dysfunctional thoughts, it leads to dysfunctional behaviors and emotions.

In cognitive therapy, it’s believed that by changing your thoughts, you can change what you do and how you feel.

An Example of Cognitive Therapy:

Mindfulness-based therapy
- Used to help you better understand and manage your thoughts and emotions
- The goal is the relief of distressing feelings
- Originally for depression, but is now used for many types of mental health problems

4. Humanistic Therapy

In humanistic therapy, you work on your ability to make and develop rational choices. You also focus on respect and concern for other people.

Examples of Humanistic Therapy:

Client-centered therapy
- Doesn’t believe the idea that the therapist is the leader or authority of you and your personal experiences
- Your therapist helps you by emphasizing their care, interest, and concern for you
Gestalt therapy
- Focus is on the present
- Work on taking responsibility for yourself
Existential therapy
- Focuses on the search for meaning
- Free will
- Self-sufficiency

5. Integrative or Holistic Therapy

This final therapy category is where your therapist uses a combination of any or all of the previous four therapy categories to make a treatment plan for you.

An Example of Integrative Therapy:

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

I have personally gone through EMDR for PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). The EMDR helped a lot and I have significantly less anxiety surrounding triggers from the event.

I had 5-6 sessions with a therapist who specialized in EMDR. He explained everything first and answered all of my questions. I felt at ease and safe before and after the therapy.

When he prompted me to bring up memories of the traumatic event during the therapy, I was anxious, of course, and had some tears.

The therapist had me rate how I was feeling before and then again after each session of EMDR treatment in order to gauge if he needed to make any adjustments to my therapy treatment.

After about 2 sessions, I was already improving and my anxiety around loud noises and yelling had significantly decreased. I still had a long way to go in recovering, but I would recommend trying EMDR for PTSD. I didn’t feel I had anything to lose by trying it.

Specifics of EMDR:

Replaces negative feelings from traumatic memories and replaces them with positive emotions and ideas
~80% effective for PTSD
Has been used for other mental health problems such as:
- Anxiety (including public speaking and medical procedures)
- Panic attacks
- Eating Disorders
- Addictions
Uses back and forth eye movement for 20-30 seconds at a time
- This is called “dual stimulation”
- The back and forth action helps you change your emotional reactions
- Your therapist could also use specific tapping or musical sequences instead of eye movement to stimulate your brain
- During the back and forth movement, your therapist helps you bring up memories of the traumatic event
Can be used with other types of therapy, which is why it’s considered integrative
Accepted as an effective form of treatment by the:
- World Health Organization (WHO)
- American Psychiatric Association (APA)
- U.S. Department of Defense
- U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs
Shown in studies to improve symptoms of PTSD more quickly than talk therapy alone
Details of the traumatic event don’t necessarily have to be talked about in detail, so it can be less distressing to you

In one study of EMDR after six 50-minute sessions:

100% of the study participants who’d had “just” one traumatic event was totally relieved of their PTSD symptoms
77% of the participants who’d had more than one traumatic event were relieved of their symptoms

In the psychology community, there is some disagreement about whether the benefit from EMDR is from the repetitive movement or from the exposure to the traumatic event during therapy.

Final Thoughts On Mental Health Therapy

There are many more specific types of mental health therapy out there. You can find more indexed and linked to here.

I believe there is a therapy type out there for anyone and everyone, no matter what your mental health needs are.

Please, if you are having a hard time and think (or know) that you need help, tell someone how you’re feeling. Your life is so worth it.

Mental Health Resources and Support (U.S. Only)

Disclaimer: I am not a mental health expert. This post is for informational purposes only.