Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy, also known as crisis counseling, is an organized conceptual framework, which uses multiple psychological theories to assist an individual towards problem resolution. This type of therapy / counseling may be appropriate after crisis intervention since the goal of psychotherapy is problem resolution and the goal of crisis intervention is problem management. The two should always be treated separate. Both in terms of function and application. Psychotherapy is usually a longer-term type of counseling. It relies mainly on establishing communication between the therapist and individual as a means of understanding and modifying the individual behavior. The formulation of a plan of attack on the problem might be weeks or months in the making while the the rapist and individual explore for the underlying cause of the problem that precipitated the crisis that made the individual seek help to begin with. In psychotherapy, the therapist leads the individual to self-discovery and attempts to remediate more or less ongoing emotional problems in order that new ways of coping with stress and new patterns of behavior may develop. Crisis intervention however, deals with the here and now. The goal of crisis intervention is to help the individual regain a pre-crisis stability. This can be accomplished by interrupting the maladaptive behavior of the individual as skillfully and quickly as possible. This will often require providing for the individual that which the individual can not provide for themselves. This could be emotional or physical support or even direction at a time in the individual’s life when self - direction may be impossible. Therefore, every momement is crucial to the intervener, especially if the individual is to maximize their involvement in psychotherapy after the crisis. Unlike psychotherapy, crisis intervention calls for instigating plans of action immediately by the intervener to help the individual discover an adaptive means of coping with a particular crisis. Since the term crisis