Counselling vs. Psychotherapy.
What's the Difference?
There are similarities between counselling and psychotherapy, and even with their differences, counselling does include some psychotherapy and psychotherapy does includes some counselling.
Counselling
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Focused on present problems and solutions
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Specific solutions or behaviours
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Short term therapy
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Action and behaviour focused
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Talk therapy
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Guidance, support, and education to help clients identify and find their own solutions to current problems
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Secondary process
Recommended: If you're looking for someone who is essentially a "coach" who can guide and support you as you learn to recognize problems and formulate healthy solutions yourself.
Psychotherapy
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Focused on chronic or recurrent problems (e.g., trauma), medical conditions (e.g., cancer), and/or diagnosed mental health conditions (e.g., Bipolar disorder, major anxiety, etc.)
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Overall patterns, big picture-oriented
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Typically longer-term therapy
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Feeling and experience focused
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May include testing, talk therapy, other therapies tailored to treat chronic conditions
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In-depth focus on internal thoughts/feelings (core issues) leading to personal growth
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Primary process
Recommended: If you've seen a counselor and your issues aren't improving even though you've been actively working on solutions.