How does psychotherapy work to adapt to each patient?

A reflection on how to offer a totally personalized treatment in psychotherapy.

If there is one thing that characterizes psychotherapy, it is its ability to adapt to many types of problems and difficulties.. After all, in the psychologist's office, patient and professional deal with very different experiences: cases of phobias, low self-esteem, couple crisis, extreme perfectionism, depression, learning disorders... All these phenomena are expressed through very diverse symptoms and forms of discomfort, which cannot be solved by applying the same "recipes".

However, it is not surprising that psychologists adapt to each particular case; their work consists in studying the particularities of the patient and his or her way of life, and on the other hand, people's way of thinking and behaving is necessarily plural and flexible. Everyone thinks, feels and lives life in their own way.

Now, within the ability of psychologists to adjust their services to each specific reason for consultation and patient, there are intervention modalities that are more versatile than others.

How do you manage to adapt to the problems of each patient in psychotherapy?

All the psychologists specialized in psychotherapy dedicate the first part of the therapeutic process to the first part of the therapeutic process to getting to know their patient better and what has led them to seek professional help. This is achieved through dialogue, and by taking steps so that the person who has come to the consultation (or who uses the psychologist through the format of online therapy by video call) can relax and adopt an attitude of honesty, knowing that they can express themselves without fear and that they will not be judged.

This first phase of information gathering is crucial to be able to help the person, but by itself it is insufficient. Firstly, this accumulated information must be transformed into a working hypothesis, and secondly, it must be shared with the patient and a personalized intervention program must be implemented in order to provide a solution.

How to achieve this? At this point, there are two main options. One is to start from a psychotherapy paradigm and analyze the information from that prism to first make a description of the problem to be addressed, then create a hypothesis of the elements causing the patient's problem, and finally propose solutions. This implies letting the information provided by the patient be transformed by the explanatory schema of that paradigm, and that the objective to be achieved also be transformed by the explanatory schema of that paradigm.and that the objective to be achieved is also expressed in very particular terms, associated with that theoretical-practical orientation (e.g., the cognitive-behavioral model).

The other option is not to ascribe to a single paradigm and to focus on solving the problems that the patient complains about, without letting them remain totally unresolved.without letting them be totally re-interpreted by a particular framework of interpretation. In this way, the psychologist can combine various theoretical and practical resources to describe the problem without conceptual limitations and address it without procedural limitations. This is the basis of what is known as integrative psychotherapy.

What is integrative psychotherapy?

As the name suggests, integrative psychotherapy is a model of psychological therapy in which emphasis is placed on the need to combine and make compatible various intervention techniques and strategies in order to "integrate" them in a solution tailored to the patient, from a philosophy characterized by pragmatism.

Instead of adhering to a specific paradigm and making the case presented by the patient fit into it, integrative psychotherapy invites to take a step back, adopt a general and broader view of the problem, and combine resources to best fit the characteristics of the person, his/her life context, his/her expectations, etc.

Thus, theoretical limitations can be avoidedIn each case, using in each case the techniques and solutions that have shown to be most effective for that particular type of problem. Therefore, integrative psychotherapy is characterized by its heterogeneity and the plurality of resources to which it gives access.

Want to learn more about integrative psychotherapy?

If you are a psychologist and are interested in training in the theory and practice of integrative psychotherapy, Mensalus' courses and postgraduate programs are for you. At our psychological and psychiatric care center we offer training options both online and in person.

On the one hand, the Master in Integrative Psychotherapy is one academic year long and its 12th edition starts on September 27, 2021. It can be taken at the Institut Mensalus center, located in Barcelona, or from home through live connections with the classroom. It includes practical exercises and sessions of observation and participation in therapy with real patients, under the supervision of the center's professionals. Upon completion, students are awarded a University Degree by the Nebrija University of Madrid.

On the other hand, the Professionalizing Online Postgraduate Course in Integrative Psychotherapy is 6 months long and starts on October 25, 2021. This training program is 100% online and gives the possibility to observe real cases of therapeutic processes through supervision classes. As with the Master's Degree, upon completion it also provides students with a University Degree from the Nebrija University of Madrid.

If you would like more information about Mensalus' psychotherapy training programs, please contact us.