Lifestyle Choices

Alternative Approaches and L.T.E.P.

All the alternative approaches can be used for long-term psychotherapy. The form the therapy takes is very variable. A fairly average example would be one session a week for three years, possibly combined with attending a group for group psychotherapy for one evening,every two weeks.

Advantages

A therapist who uses some of the alternative techniques may provide the following:

• A far faster process costing less time and money.
• A more effective route to self-expression.
• The possibility of exploring body, feeling and spirit as well as the intellect.
• An emphasis on being more vital rather than understanding why you are not.

Disadvantages

• As in psychoanalysis, therapists tend to try to make their systems of therapy all-embracing, which may not be what you want or need.
• As in psychoanalysis, some therapists get rigidly identified with a particular technique, which then becomes a dogma.
• As in psychoanalysis, there is a danger of a certain kind of unreality. In psychoanalysis it is in intellectual abstruseness, divorced from everyday life. In the alternative therapies the unreality can be in a certain kind of spurious optimism — everything is beautiful!
• As the therapy is often exciting, there is a temptation to get “high” on a few week-ends without making any long-term change in your life.
• The power of the therapy makes it more dangerous for anyone psychotic (out of touch with reality), or near-psychotic, as exploration can spark off another episode.
• The power of the therapy requires even greater integrity from the therapist.

Generally, the quality of psychotherapy depends much more on the quality of the therapist than on the choice of techniques used. But, given therapists of equal integrity, skill, warmth and soon, there is no doubt that the alternative techniques generally have more to offer.

Group Psychotherapy

In this form of therapy, a number of people, who usually havenot known each other previously, meet at regular intervals with one or two therapists to discuss and “work on” their problems. Group psychotherapy is often more productive over a longer period of time. Any of the various techniques described in Psychotherapeutic approaches can be used in a group setting. An example of a group is the psychodrama session. Some people take individual psychotherapy sessions at the same time as joining a group — this can be complementary. Issues may arise in a group (for example, the way in which you relate to others) which might never have come up in private sessions, but which could be explored further individually.

Advantages

• Seeing others express themselves often makes it easier for you to be less inhibited.
• Feedback from other members of the group may be very useful in seeing yourself more clearly.
• Seeing others change over a period of time gives you hope about what is possible.
• How you relate to other people becomes visible in a group and may be useful information in your therapy. You may see and react to some members of the group as you saw and reacted to some members of your family.
• Real friendships may develop in a group. (This is often frowned on in psychoanalytic group psychotherapy where distance is the more general rule.)
• The group contains more energy of reaction: the more people there are the more potential interactions. This can make an electric atmosphere, which cuts through unnecessary resistance.

Disadvantages

• Because of the last advantage, group psychotherapy can be more threatening than individual techniques. The contraindications listed in When not to choose explorative psychotherapy apply even more strongly.
• There is a lack of privacy. Though a group can be intimate and deal with private and personal matters, there may be some subjects you would rather deal with individually.

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