APPLICATIONS FOR SUPPORTIVE PSYCHOTHERAPY

“Sometimes compassion and communication can cure everything”

Our World is filled with people who have a variety of problems related to their mind. Some do not have control over their emotions or have trouble with behaviour, society, anger, anxiety. According to scholars it is believed that personal interaction can help one overcome their difficulties. Interaction is a desired way to control and treat many health problems. Talking to a psychiatrist or psychologist can help an individual deal with psychological disorders.

What is therapy? – A medical treatment provided to a mentally unstable person or someone facing any severe mental illness is called therapy. There are many contradicting therapies in psychology. After the specific diagnosis, the therapist decides which therapy must be applied for the treatment.

Supportive psychotherapy is a treatment given to an individual going to any mental disorder. Psychotherapy does not involve the medical mode of treatment but can be done through psychological means. Usually it focuses on serious problem associated with personality issues, hallucinations, conflicts, identity disorder, difficulties in working with others, delusions. People suffering from stress, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder and other mental condition can be treated through psychotherapy. The application for psychotherapy is quite simple it is more into the inside of an individual and the therapist focuses on his or her past  more than the present. The therapies goal is to reconstruct a personal mind using clinical services. Psychotherapy and counselling are quite similar as counselling is a short-term treatment which centre is behaviour pattern whereas therapy focus on inside problem and is a long term process. The concept of supportive psychotherapy has an objective where the treatment is not giving to change the personality of patients but to prevent a serious mental illness. Psychotherapy is more of a technique or approach to encourage, advice and show empathy towards a patient. This was the only formal treatment in 20th century to help individual’s cope with their obscurity. Psychotherapy uses psychoanalytical approach to help people deal with their mental illness. Here are some of the applications for supportive Psychotherapy:

ADAPTIVE SKILLS: To help patients and bring change through learning and  identification. This is applied to correct one’s behaviour. The therapist uses positive reinforcement to teach interpersonal skills. The activity helps the patient to develop self- esteem. Skill adaptation training is given for problem solving, communication, management, relaxation, determination and concentration.

●GUIDANCE: This technique is applied in supportive psychotherapy to make an individual realise about their ability and to help him prepare a strategy for dealing with obstacles. Guidance can be really helpful and supportive as it gives a patient determination and courage to work through their problems. The client is provided with a way, how he can avoid stress? For example: informing a patient about his/her mental illness can make the patient anxious. However, providing guidance can help the patient reduce anxiety and make the patient more tolerant towards his or her illness.

●ADVICE: The important part of supportive psychotherapy is advice and information that can help the patient find their own way from dealing with their long sufferings. An advice is the most meaningful thing for a patient suffering from any mental illness. A good advice can change a life of an individual. For example: The therapist giving advice about how an individual can direct his or her mind and come out of their illness by engaging themselves into certain activities.

●TEACHING: It is based on technical knowledge which involves norms and principles. Teaching can be applied to provide improvement and understanding in one’s behaviour. For example: teaching a patient about the pros and cons of a disorder and making him knowledgeable of the objectives related to the disorder is a part of teaching skills which has to be applied while giving supportive psychotherapy.

MOTIVATION: When we support someone, we help them from failing. We motivate a person to function again. Rollnick and Miller described motivational interview in as a way of showing the patient clear direction and help the patient resolve the changes around them .

●ENCOURAGEMENT: The major application used in supportive psychotherapy, where the therapist encourages the patient to do certain things related to his mental and physical state. The therapist motivate his patient to maintain personal hygiene, exercise and interact with people around them. Encouragement is a very powerful application as it allow people to believe that their efforts will be benefited. It can be referred as hope and hope is something which holds a person from falling apart.

●PRAISE: A general objective of psychotherapy is to avoid arguments and praise the person dealing with crisis. Praising a person can be very supportive in any therapy as it can be very comforting for the patient but it is very important that the therapist does not give false praise as it can be worse than saying nothing.  Falsity can destroy a good relationship and a person’s behaviour towards each other.

●REASSURANCE: Quite similar to praise, a honest tactic applied by the therapist on his patient. Where he/she must be given a detail about his doubts and can be reassured about the negative and  positive side effects of the therapy. Reassurance can sometimes not be acceptable by the patient or his family but it is important really important for the patient’s treatment. Verbal reassurance is often provided to bring the patient out of his irrational thinking and behaviour.

COPING WITH ILLNESS:

●SEVERE MENTAL ILLNESS: Supportive psychotherapy is mostly preferable for people suffering with severe mental illness. This approach is a treatment provided for supportive and expressive psychotherapy. The form mainly focuses on anxiety issues, isolation, lack of adaptive skills such as learning. The therapy offers a patient understanding and support through advise, guidance, reassurance, encouragement, motivation and environmental manipulation. People suffering from severe mental illness must have a balance between supportive and expressive segment during his or her treatment.

●PSYCHOEDUCATION: Education and skill training are applied during supportive psychotherapy for chronic mental illness. For example- a person suffering from schizophrenia (a disorder in which a person ability of thinking and behaviour is affected and the person goes into hallucination and delusions) which is a severe mental illness. The patient must be provided with the knowledge about the disorder by the therapist in supportive psychotherapy and he or she should be encouraged and praised to build their self-esteem for better outcome. Awareness and education of the patient with a cognitive structure helps to improve the ability of making a realistic decision.

●FAMILY PSYCHOEDUCATION: When this therapy is applied on a patient with higher symptoms the therapist involves the patient environment and try to reduce his or her stress and anxiety by educating the family and his friends. Teaching the family about patient’s disorder is a way to support and stabilize the patient. Family psycho-education approach can be applied in supportive psychotherapy for a patients faster recovery.

●ENVIRONMENTAL MANIPULATION: Changing the patient example is a good strategy that can be applied on a patient facing mental illness. Changes like hospitalization, home treatment, rehabilitation centre can be used for the extreme cases related to mental health.

●PERSONALITY DISORDER: The patient who suffers from personality disorder are the one who has anger issues and a highly dependent. There behaviour can be dangerous and they mostly have a negative emotion within themselves. Applying supportive psychotherapy on such patient is not difficult but rather a very careful task. The treatment focus is to develop patients skill and bring them out of their fear such as rejection, ignorance and criticism.

●AWARENESS: It is very important to make the patient aware about his thoughts, feelings, actions and desire. Applying supportive psychotherapy involves clarification, confrontation and interpretation of the patient’s feelings and behaviour. The therapy is applied to make a patient confront about his true feelings, ideas and make them aware about what they really want. For example- some feelings and people are often hidden like sexual desire psychotherapist make the basis of their by applying this therapy.

●ACCEPTANCE: To make the patient realise and accept his medical condition. This helps to have control over the patient and does not provoke the patient from committing suicide or going into depression.

●CONTROL: Control over the body and mind by relaxation, exercise, meditation and understanding. Control over anger and tension is the task of psychotherapies. If supportive psychotherapy is applied by the therapist on the patient then it gives more value to the therapy.

PREVENTION OF CRISIS: Dealing with crisis is considered to be the most common thing a psychotherapist trade with. They have helped thousands of people to deal with trauma anxiety and stress. The traumatic events such as a death, separation, unemployment, status, low finance are few reason of crisis. The supportive psychotherapy intend to deal with these crisis to prevent mental illness. The theory can be applied in a way such that the therapist inform the patient in advance that he or she might have anxiety and stress issues. This trick often helps to minimise the occurrence of anxiety during the course of treatment. The theory can also be applied by giving the patient a different perspective and ask them to look at things differently and positively while facing these crisis. For example- If a person loses his or her job and is currently unemployed because he was not talented and was not capable enough, has a high risk of going through anxiety and stress. The therapist can make the patient think differently and encourage them by giving a new perspective that he or she is worthy of something bigger and better.

A good therapeutic alliance is the most important aspect of any therapy. The role of the therapist should be like a parent who provides patient with nurture, encourages them and take an initiative to understand their state of mind. In recent years there has been an exceptional progress in psychological therapies. Few scholars have even mentioned mental illness or loss of mind as biological problems. The shift has created a lot of concern in the field of psychology. However, Psychiatrist have reframed this as medical speciality, which main principles is care, knowledge, communication, improvement and learning. Several researches are done to study supportive psychotherapy. The therapy is a potential treatment as it is a treatment of choice. Applying this therapy is not difficult but considered as a crucial and experimental treatment. The therapy relies on measures to support and enhance the patient the technique which can be mastered with practice and be applied in many situations.

To avoid emotional imbalance, supportive psychotherapy is an ideal treatment provided. Although the therapy is not applied on a person’s unconscious mind but rather interpreting his or her conscious mind. While the course of therapy the patient and the therapist must have a healthy relationship, they should be active and the therapist should be involved in conversation thoroughly. As we are aware that it is a lengthy therapy and is practised across a broad spectrum of people with mental disorder. The patient need for the therapy depends on their intensity of illness they are in.