Cognitive: I think this would be most helpful to me because therapists teach you new ways to adapt your thinking. You change the way you talk to yourself. Many times people are way too hard on themselves for things that are not a big deal. Cognitive therapy can be very helpful for that. The textbook talks about a dual cognitive-behavioral therapy. I think this might be the best one. It allows you to talk about how you feel and adjust your way of thinking to be more positive and changing negative behaviors with it. If their is a current behavior that makes you think negative thoughts about yourself, they work on changing the behavior and in turn the negative thoughts do not happen.

Humanistic: I prefer this approach to psychodynamic therapy because it focuses on the future and not dwelling on issues in the past. Of course it is important to talk about them, but we shouldn’t focus only on those because it is impossible to change them. I like that therapists are focused more on listening rather than forming judgments. Therapists act more as a compassionate friend that is there to listen. Although it does have an unconditional positive regard. I think it is important to tell the client when they are causing problems for themselves or others.

Behavioral: I think behavioral therapy is the most helpful for things like phobias and when people have anxiety in certain places. It can be helpful to people with traumatic disorders. I think exposure therapy like this is very helpful to people who experience high anxiety rather than talking to a therapist. Most times that is not where they experience the high anxiety so the therapist might not be able to get a good sense of what actually happens. Although it might not be as helpful for mood disorders or personality disorders. I don’t think this therapy is as universal for all disorders.

Psychodynamic: This therapy could be helpful and a variation of it is still used today. With talk therapy, of course you are going to talk about any sort of underlying or childhood issues that might be causing problems to this day. I think it is important to feel that you can speak freely to a therapist. Although in the techniques described in the textbook it seems silly that you can just say whatever, people could make you think they have a problem they made up. Talk therapy can be very helpful to people who feel they do not have another confidential place to speak freely about their issues. Although I think Freud’s methods are too focused on childhood issues. We talked about in class about therapists creating childhood trauma that people did not actually have. I think their can be issues with miscommunication.