Often, adults find that their emotional balance suffers and their quality of life deteriorates due to problems or difficult situations they encounter. Sometimes, we try to cope on our own and feel frustrated when we can’t. It is at these times that we can turn to a psychologist who can help us restore our well-being and lost emotional balance through adult psychotherapy .
Psychotherapy for adults is a process established between a psychologist and their patients. Through the relationship they develop and the communication they maintain, the patient can restore their well-being and biopsychosocial balance.
Establishing a strong therapeutic relationship between the psychotherapist and their patient is the foundation of all successful psychological treatments. The patient must feel comfortable with their psychologist in order to feel understood and accepted. The psychologist will address the patient’s concerns and reason for seeking help and work to help them cope with and manage their psychological problems or conflicts.
Psychological psychotherapy for adults will initially focus on a comprehensive assessment of the patient and the problems they are experiencing that are the reason for seeking help. Following this assessment, the psychologist will provide the patient with feedback on the findings, and the therapeutic objectives and goals of their treatment will be agreed upon together.
The therapeutic goals established in psychological therapy will be appropriate and agreed upon with the patient based on their needs and the problems they present. The psychologist will work together with the patient to improve their emotional well-being.
Psychotherapy is a process freely chosen by the patient, and the outcome of psychological treatment will depend on both the therapist’s professional skills and abilities and the patient’s level of involvement and motivation for change.
Problems addressed in psychotherapy for adults
Anxiety
Anxiety is an emotion, just like sadness, joy, fear, or anger. In many circumstances, anxiety is a normal response to a perceived threat. Its function is to protect us from this threat, causing us to avoid the situation, flee, or fight against it.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
Obsessive-compulsive disorder or OCD is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive, recurrent and persistent thoughts (obsessions), which invade the person producing in them a feeling of intense discomfort, restlessness, apprehension, fear or worry, and repetitive behaviors, called compulsions, which the person performs in order to relieve and neutralize the anxiety they experience.
Social phobia or social anxiety disorder
Social phobia, or social anxiety disorder, is an anxiety disorder characterized by intense fear in situations where the person must be socially or publicly exposed. The person, feeling evaluated or observed, will react anxiously.
Generalized anxiety
The main symptom of generalized anxiety disorder is the presence of almost constant worry or tension about various problems in daily life, even when there are no objective causes for it. These are people who live with a feeling of excessive worry about everyday problems, family relationships, work, or health issues. They know they are experiencing excessive anxiety and worry, but they don’t know how to control it.
Panic disorder, anxiety attacks, or panic attacks
Panic disorder is an anxiety disorder in which the person experiencing it has sudden and intense attacks of fear without any external trigger. These frequent episodes of terror are accompanied by a heightened state of anxiety and are called panic attacks, anxiety attacks, or panic attacks.
Phobias
A specific phobia (simple phobia) is an anxiety disorder characterized by an intense and irrational fear of a specific object or situation that poses no threat to the individual.
Although this disorder can involve any type of situation, in clinical practice some more common ones include fear of animals or insects, environmental phobias, fear of blood, or fear of being in enclosed spaces.
Stress
Stress is an anxiety disorder; the term comes from English (stress, ‘tension’) and is a physiological reaction of the body in which the person puts into play various defense mechanisms in the face of a situation that he or she perceives as threatening or that demands an overexertion.
Post-traumatic stress
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety-related disorder that affects people who have witnessed or been involved in a traumatic and threatening situation. They have experienced this situation with intense terror.
Depression
Depression (from the Latin depressio, meaning ‘oppression’, ‘shrinking’ or ‘dejection’, sinking) is the diagnosis that describes a mood disorder, characterized by feelings of dejection, unhappiness and guilt, as well as causing a total or partial inability to enjoy things and events in daily life (anhedonia).
Emotional dependency
Emotional dependency is characterized by the establishment of romantic relationships marked by a significant imbalance, where the dependent person submits to, idealizes, and magnifies the other. This situation of emotional dependency negatively impacts the dependent person’s self-esteem, physical health, and mental well-being. The romantic relationships established by the dependent person are entirely asymmetrical.
Sexual problems
Sexual problems are defined as any difficulty during any phase or stage of the sexual act (desire, arousal, orgasm and resolution) that prevents the individual or couple from enjoying sexuality and sexual activity.
Sleep problems
The essential characteristic of sleep problems or insomnia is difficulty falling or staying asleep, or the feeling of not having had restful sleep for at least a month. People with sleep problems feel they haven’t slept well, their sleep is of poor quality, and they wake up tired.
Grief and the acceptance of loss
Grief is the emotional adjustment process that follows any loss. There are many types of loss in our lives: the death of a loved one, a medical diagnosis, disability, job loss, loss of home, separations and divorces, life transitions, and the loss of a family member with any type of dependency.
Workplace problems
Many people suffer psychologically due to work-related problems. We spend many hours at work and are subjected to sources of stress and tension in our jobs. Some of the work-related problems that can affect and deteriorate mental health include: work-related stress, workplace harassment, demotivation, burnout syndrome, etc.
Eating disorders
Eating disorders are determined by multiple factors (biological, psychological, familial, and social). These factors influence the onset and maintenance of eating disorders, making it crucial to evaluate and treat each case individually.
Addictions
The problems stemming from addiction are characterized by a set of signs and symptoms. The origin of addiction lies in biological, genetic, psychological, familial, and social factors.
