Types of Psychotherapy in Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing Practice

Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing

Author - BT Basavanthappa

1^st edition - 2007

Pg. 294-297

Psychotherapy in nursing practice

Psychotherapy has a number of different characteristics that make each type an important study for psychiatric nurses.

Data clearly establishes the effectiveness of individual psychotherapy for a number of specific types of therapies targeted to specific disorders.

Many of the techniques of psychotherapy are of value and useful to nurses in their daily work both with psychiatric clients and with others.

Psychotherapy has potential relevance to all settings in which psychiatric nursing is carried out; inpatient units, outpatient clinics and home care.

Modern Psychotherapy places a strong emphasis on brief treatment techniques that differs significantly from the past approaches to psychotherapies.

In an era when there is  often focus on the sole role of medications to relieve mental distress as founded on the  ever increasing emphasis on the biological basis of mental illness it is important to recognize that individual psychotherapy remains important and a well validated therapeutic tool. Many clients are helped through processes that allow them to gain insight, to examine thoughts and behaviors and to try out new ways of relating to others.

Nurses in virtually any area of practice will encounter therapists who offer many different approaches to treatment. Some of these therapies are relatively conventional such as brief psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, client centered therapy.

Each therapy has strong proponents and each have clearly unique benefits.

Different kinds of therapies:

·         Brief psychotherapy

·         Client centered therapy

·         Cognitive behavioral therapy

·         Existential therapy

·         Family therapy

·         Gestalt therapy

·         Hypnotherapy

·         Individual psychotherapy

·         Insight therapy

·         Family therapy

·         Short-term dynamic therapy

·         Transactional analysis therapy

Some nurses in advance practice roles function as therapist offering direct services to clients.  These nurses have additional education in individual therapy and may have experienced therapy themselves as a means to gain growth and self-insight.

Nursing theory and its role in therapies

Professional practice increasingly requires the nurses understand or care from a theory base.

Psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy are most consistent with nursing theories that emphasize human development and the influences of past experience in present behaviors. Peplau’s nursing theories are particularly comparable with the psycho- analytical and interpersonal therapy approaches and its development was directly influenced by interpersonal theory and by psychoanalysis.  Peplau’s identified needs, frustrations, conflicts and anxiety as important factors and that the nurse should explicitly evaluate the client in the context of a client’s past history and present circumstances.

 Cognitive behavioral therapy is consistent with nursing theories emphasizing adaption.

Like any area of nursing practice psychiatric care is a discipline in which the nurse must work as a member of the treatment team composed of representatives of several professions. The team approach may dictate the nurses style of interventions with the client for example if the treatment team elects to use the psychodynamic approach, the nurse’s intervention must be grounded in the principles of psychodynamic therapy. In contrast if the treatment approaches is cognitive and behavioral the nurse must plan interventions consistent with identifying thoughts in changing behavioral outcomes. In such a collaborative setting nurses must understand the treatment approach selected for each client and then must ensure the nursing interventions are consistent with those of other team members