Therapeutic Approaches for Mental Health Treatment | A Guide

Mental health issues are sharing the light as in India with a projection of 56 million people suffering from depression and 38 million people living with anxiety disorders is drawing attention. However, despite the growing need for mental health support, seeking help for these issues is often stigmatised in Indian culture. This has created a pressing need for accessible and culturally sensitive mental health services. Counselors and therapists play a crucial role in addressing this need by providing guidance and support to individuals struggling with mental health issues.

In this article, we'll explore the landscape of psychological counselling in India, including the types of counselling available, and the cultural attitudes towards mental health care and counselling in India.

So, What Is Theraputic Approach for Mental Health Treament as A Whole?

The idea that a psychologist or counsellor uses to frame their perspective on human connections and the problems that people face throughout their lives is known as a therapeutic approach.

Benefits of Theraputic Approach for Mental Health Care?

Scientific evidence for treating mental illness and improving mood :

Counselors use a myriad of techniques and approaches to improve the mental health and wellbeing of clients.

Counseling can reduce medical costs :

There is a direct link between physical and mental health. Often, when individuals treat underlying mental health conditions or receive counseling to help regulate emotions and improve mood, physical health improves as well.

Counseling can provide education and teach skills :

Psychoeducation is the process of explaining mental health conditions, diagnoses, services, and treatment options. Many people who come to counseling know that they are suffering but understand nothing about the underlying causes, specific conditions, or how certain techniques can address presenting problems.

Creating support systems and reducing symptoms :

Therapy helps in developing the ability to understand and solve problems. It offers practical and supportive ways to manage stress and other difficult parts of your everyday life. These coping skills can be helpful throughout your life, even when you are no longer attending therapy by reducing symptoms eventually.

Other areas of usefulness of therapy and counselling:

• help improve communication skills
• help you feel empowered
• empower you to develop fresh insights about your life
• learn how to make healthier choices
• develop coping strategies to manage distress

A mental health professional at Mpower has intensive training to address the mental health and well-being concerns as a counsellor and/or therapist. Further the mental health services at Mpower cover a range of concerns related to mental health and well-being, including but not restricted to:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Bipolar disorder
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Personality disorders
• Eating disorders
• • Substance use disorders

As we have understood the benefits of the Theraputic Approaches for mental Health Treatment, let’s discuss in detail different approaches available in India.

Therapeutic approaches in India

Most effective and widely recommended therapeutic approaches are detailed below:

Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic Therapies

Sigmund Freud invented psychoanalysis, which is among the first forms of medicine. This method's main goal is to identify and investigate significant previous occurrences or trends that might be affecting a person's present-day situation.

According to Freud, the underlying emotions and thoughts from childhood experiences are what cause the undesirable behaviours that people engage in today. After they are discovered, addressing the unconscious sentiments and ideas in order to modify behaviour takes precedence. Since Freud, there have been numerous breakthroughs and improvements in psychoanalytical techniques.

Psychoanalysis can take a lot of time for patients, even though some may find it helpful because it involves profound exploration with regard to mental health care intervention.

Interpersonal Therapy

In an interpersonal therapeutic approach, the patient and therapist work together to identify the patient's diagnosis and examine it within the context of their lives and experiences. Through conducting an inventory of experiences, the patient can begin to understand patterns and significant events in their lives and relationships. Strengthening relationships and establishing and deepening support systems are essential in this type of therapy.

Interpersonal therapy can be effective for individuals living with mood disorders, such as depression

Mentalization Therapy

An individual's ability to discern between their own emotions and those of others is referred to as mentalizing. Patients who go through this process may also learn how their actions are influenced by their emotions.

In order to improve interpersonal functioning and raise awareness of thoughts and emotions, mentalization treatment is most frequently used with patients who have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and require mental health care and support.

Family Therapy

Family counselling addresses issues that arise inside the family unit. Family members can learn to communicate concerns, comprehend one another and how the problem affects them collectively, and make strategies to address problems with the support of this therapy.

This therapeutic approach can enhance daily relationships, teach families how to support and communicate with one another, and teach them to take proactive measures to address problems.

When to Seek Family Therapy

A family might want to reach out to a family counselor if:

1. A child is having a behavioral health issue.
2. A family member is managing a mental or physical health condition, like a drug addiction or eating disorder.
3. The family is going through a divorce.
4. The family is grieving the loss of a loved one.


Group Therapy

One or two clinicians typically facilitate group therapy which may have up to 15 participating clients. This format is excellent for support groups, developing skills, or education about specific topics (e.g., substance use, grief, stress management). Group therapy provides an atmosphere of emotional safety and connects people experiencing similar challenges. Group members can often learn and receive support from both the therapist and each other.

Group therapy can be advantageous for people who need a more cost-effective way to get mental health care, support and further treatments.

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Play Therapy

Children can benefit from play therapy as a directive or non-directive expressive type of therapy that fosters social and communication skills in them. Children might not be able to verbally communicate their emotional worries, so this might be useful

In play therapy, kids collaborate closely with a therapist (who could be an observer or an active player) to explore how a kid expresses and controls himself. This method helps improve a child's speech and social abilities.

EMDR

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a form of therapy that can help people heal after distressing or traumatic events. A therapist who utilizes EMDR will help the patient access stressful or difficult memories by pairing them with external stimuli, such as eye movement or EFT tapping. EMDR incorporates aspects of cognitive-behavioral therapy. Research demonstrates that patients can create new associations during this process, which can help decrease psychological distress and improve functioning.

EDMR for Trauma

EMDR has shown promise in treating PTSD symptoms in veterans and improving symptoms in individuals who have undergone different types of traumas. Because revisiting trauma is a sensitive process, EMDR should only be carried out by a licensed and certified practitioner.

Behaviour Therapy

Behaviorism suggests that people can change their behavior by focusing on what can be observed and using proper reinforcements. Therapists can help patients evaluate behaviors that are not serving them but have been reinforced by factors throughout their lives. By naming a target behaviour and exploring how they would like the behaviour to change, patients and clinicians can develop a plan that allows the patient to improve negative or unhelpful behaviours while picking up new techniques to support them in creating sustainable change.

Classical Conditioning

Ivan Pavlov trained dogs to associate the ring of a bell with food in a well-known experiment. This illustrates what classical conditioning is all about. When two stimuli are matched, humans can also form connections between them that result in a learnt response. Both maladaptive (negative) and adaptive (good) reactions are possible. Therapists can help patients develop new mental associations with stimuli, such as ones that trigger a relaxation response rather than a fear-based reaction, because the association between stimuli can change. Anxiety, fear, and phobias can all be treated using this kind of learning association.

Operant Conditioning

The core idea of this behavioural strategy is reinforcement. The consequences that follow can have an impact on an individual's behaviour in one way or another. If a youngster receives a reward each time they tidy their room, for example, they might replicate the behaviour as they have learnt that the behaviour would result in positive reinforcement. On the other hand, an unfavourable outcome or a lack of reward may result in a decline in a certain behaviour. When working with a kid, a therapist might use these concepts to help the child learn desired behaviours and discourage unwanted ones.

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Desensitizing

When someone reacts fearfully to a trigger, they may learn to avoid specific situations or occurrences, which can lead to avoidant behaviour. A technique for altering one's relationship to fear, anxiety, and safety over a circumstance or occurrence is called desensitisation. Clients eventually realise they are secure and have the ability to control their intense feelings. Desensitisation is very useful for phobias and anxiety.

Desensitizing Strategies

When drawing on this approach, a therapist can teach relaxation strategies like deep breathing, grounding, body scanning, and progressive muscle relaxation to decrease tension. Gradual exposure to a distressing situation or event through imagery changes the association between the trigger and the response.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Popular psychotherapy that integrates behavioural and cognitive therapy into a more comprehensive approach is called cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT. With cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), patients learn to identify and question harmful or illogical ideas that could be affecting their feelings and actions. The focus is on creating a more balanced viewpoint and reaction by comprehending the relationship between ideas, feelings, and behaviours. Through thinking and behaviour tracking, patients can refine and practise new abilities during sessions and also apply them outside of sessions.

• Disorders Treated With CBT

CBT is an evidence-based treatment that is effective with a variety of diagnoses, including anxiety disorders, mood disorders, stress management, interpersonal issues, and more. There are few subtypes of CBT, which include dialectical behavioural therapy, rational emotive therapy, exposure therapy, and mindfulness-based therapy. These are mentioned below:

A. Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT)

This kind of treatment, which was created in the 1980s, imparts abilities that enhance distress tolerance, interpersonal efficacy, and emotional regulation. It includes mindfulness as well. Patients with borderline personality disorder are typically taught how to recognise and embrace their feelings and behaviours, affirm their own identities, set themselves apart from other people's experiences, and deal with any emotional pain or suffering.

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B. Rational Emotive Therapy (RET)

Identifying and correcting maladaptive thought patterns is the main goal of rational emotive therapy. The idea behind this treatment is that a person's emotions and behaviour can be influenced by how they perceive and understand events. By teaching patients to replace their illogical thoughts with sensible ones, therapists can help patients gain a better understanding of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.

C. Exposure Therapy (ET)

An evidence-based treatment designed to help clients see that they can control their concerns is exposure therapy. Following the identification of circumstances or occurrences that result in psychological distress, the patient and therapist collaborate to rank coping mechanisms that the patient can employ as needed and to develop a strategy for gradually exposing the patient to varying degrees or facets of the trigger. When this technique is used with people who are struggling with anxiety, phobias, trauma, panic attacks, or obsessive-compulsive symptoms, patients learn to reframe what they are thinking about the circumstance or events, control their feelings of fear, anxiety, or panic, and recognise that they are safe and capable of handling discomfort as it comes.

D. Mindfulness-Based Therapy

This approach has its roots in meditation techniques and could make use of cognitive behavioural therapy. The emphasis is on mindfulness, or the capacity for awareness and present-moment living. Clients can learn from therapists to access their thoughts and emotions as they come up. Clients are able to gain perspective and distance themselves from self-defeating beliefs. Studies show that mindfulness-based interventions are helpful in reducing anxiety and depressive symptoms.

E. Mindfulness Techniques

Mindfulness-based therapy techniques may include:

• Deep breathing exercises
• Meditation
• Visualization
• Guided imagery
• Cognitive Therapy

Behavioural therapy is the source of this kind of treatment. It focuses on the connection between feelings and thinking. There is a major emotional impact that can result in healthy reactions when patients are able to identify dysfunctional or irrational beliefs and change them into balanced thinking. The goal here is to adopt ways to alter thought patterns. This is an efficacious therapy technique that can be applied to people with anxiety, sadness, or phobias. Behaviour therapy and cognitive therapy can be combined to provide patients a more thorough experience.

Humanistic Therapy

The patient is seen as a unique individual in this therapeutic approach. Therapists can help patients see their strengths and ability to take charge of their life by looking closely at their decisions and actions. This will help them strive towards becoming more complete versions of themselves. Examining the patients' perspectives of the world and of themselves within it is a part of this process. By looking at these relationships, patients can become involved and stay present in the moment.

Existential Therapy

Therapists can assist patients in finding and defining meaning in their lives by delving into their personal experiences. An existential approach emphasises awareness and personal accountability. Anxiety, pain, and suffering are all acknowledged as natural parts of existence in existential therapy. It encourages clients to think freely and to adjust to whatever challenges life presents. In the end, patients gain self-acceptance and self-accountability.

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Person-Centred Therapy

Also referred to as client-centred therapy, this approach of mental health care prioritises helping patients achieve personal growth and create change in their lives. Clients are viewed as the experts of their own, and therapists empower patients to make choices that align with their goals. The therapist uses non-directive techniques to meet the patient where they are in their current journey with authenticity, empathy, and unconditional positive regard. This therapy aims to support patients in harnessing their inner strength and reaching the best possible version of themselves.

Gestalt Therapy

Patients are encouraged to examine the current moment and be present using this therapy method. Gestalt therapy focuses more on how patients are affected in the present than it does in the past. By using this method, a therapist can help patients develop an attitude of acceptance, consciousness, and accountability for their current situation in life. In this type of therapy, an individual's self-perception and understanding of their life are important because they have the power to influence how people see and engage with the outside world.

Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT)

Emotion-focused therapy (EFT) is a brief therapy that helps people better identify, experience, and manage their emotions more flexibly. Centred in the here and now, EFT works to pinpoint problems, identify changes that can occur in the present, and help individuals learn to have healthier interactions in the immediate future.

EFT for Individuals

In addition to being beneficial for couples and families, EFT is effective in the treatment of depression and trauma for individuals. One study indicated that EFT decreased symptoms of depression in couples where one member of the couple was struggling with depression.

Integrative or Holistic Therapy

Some therapists will include techniques and strategies from two or more therapy modalities in order to customise their therapeutic approach to the client's specific mental health care needs rather than relying just on one. This method selects actions to assist patients attain more significant outcomes in therapy by seeing the patient and their difficulties from a holistic perspective. For example, a therapist might apply mindfulness-based practices to help patients manage stress or emotional pain, and use cognitive behavioural therapy to help patients discover, confront, and build healthy thought habits. Patients who are battling stress, anxiety, despair, or trauma may benefit from holistic therapy.

Animal-Assisted Therapy

Humans and animals can bond to foster a sense of security and tranquillity. Being with animals has been shown to improve psychological health, particularly in terms of reducing stress and anger, fostering better social connections, and calming traumatised individuals. Animal-assisted therapy teaches people about empathy and attachment, it has been demonstrated to help people develop and strengthen their social skills. As the name suggests, in animal-assisted therapy, a variety of animals, such as dogs and horses, may be utilised.

Art Therapy

Art therapy is an integrative form of therapy that involves working with different artistic mediums to facilitate self-expression. Art therapy employs creative activities such as:

• Drawing
• Sculpting
• Painting
• Movement

This self-expression can be significant when helping patients cultivate a more profound sense of self or heal from life events. It can also enhance cognitive and motor skills. Art therapy can be applied to a variety of populations, including children, adults, and group settings.

Conclusion -

Different types of therapy are available to treat different mental health concerns and symptoms at Mpower. If you're trying to manage or you know of someone who is struggling due to everyday stressors, feeling stuck, dealing with conflicting situations in relationships, finding it difficult to navigate through traumatic experience, or yearning for enhancing the quality of your thoughts by adjusting better in the current life situation, mental health services at Mpower can be of great support. You can also download the Mpower app and book your consultation online! Our therapists will support you to pick the therapeutic alternatives based on a clear understanding of your requirements, your own goals, and what you want to gain from the therapy before opting for a specific mental health care service with the therapists at Mpower.

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