Therapeutic Approaches

Therapy comes in lots of different shapes and sizes. Certain approaches to therapy are better suited to certain issues. Likewise, some people naturally resonate with some therapies more than others.

At The Keystone Clinic we work with a blend of models to most benefit you. All of our psychotherapists are trained in multiple evidence-based approaches, which means that they can adapt their interventions throughout your sessions and as your treatment progresses.

If you would like to learn a little bit more about a specific therapeutic approach, please see our glossary below

Glossary of Therapeutic Approaches

01.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is a type of mindful psychotherapy that helps you stay focused on the present moment and accept thoughts and feelings without judgment. It aims to help you move forward through difficult emotions so you can put your energy into healing instead of dwelling on the negative.

02.

Art Psychotherapy

Art Psychotherapy is a form of psychotherapy that uses art media as its main mode of expression and communication. Art therapists/art psychotherapists use art as a medium to address emotional issues which may be confusing and distressing.

03.

CBT

Cognitive-behavioural Therapy focuses on helping you understand how your thoughts affect the way you feel and act. And in turn, how your behaviour affects your thoughts and feelings. In this therapeutic approach, the client and the therapist work together to change any unhelpful thinking patterns and behaviours.

04.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy

Dialectical Behavior Therapy is a modified type of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Its main goals are to teach people how to live in the moment, develop healthy ways to cope with stress, regulate their emotions, and improve their relationships with others.

05.

EMDR

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing is a distinct treatment approach using bilateral stimulation to support the processing of distressing information that can sometimes remain “frozen” in the brain when a person feels very overwhelmed (e.g. trauma).
Initially developed to successfully treat PTSD (and this is where the bulk of its evidence-base presently lies), EMDR is increasingly being used to treat other conditions in which disturbing memories play a part. https://emdrireland.org/

06.

Existential Therapy

Existential Therapy is a unique form of psychotherapy that looks to explore difficulties from a philosophical perspective. Focusing on the human condition as a whole, existential therapy highlights our capacities and encourages us to take responsibility for our successes.

07.

Family and Systemic Therapy

Family and Systemic Therapy is designed to help people in close relationships to better understand and support each other. It enables family members to express and explore difficult thoughts and emotions safely, understand each other’s experiences and views, appreciate each other’s needs, build on family strengths, and work together to make useful changes in their relationships and their lives.

08.

Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt Therapy is a form of psychotherapy that is centered on increasing a person’s awareness, freedom, and self-direction. It’s a form of therapy that focuses on the present moment rather than past experiences. Gestalt therapy is based on the idea that people are influenced by their present environment.

09.

Humanistic Therapy

Humanistic Therapy is about is about free will, self-discovery and achieving your full potential as a human being, rather than concentrating on individual problems or symptoms. It looks at everything that makes you who you are and focuses on you as a unique individual and your relationship with the world around you.

10.

Internal Family Systems Therapy

Internal Family Systems Therapy is a therapy model that offers a map for understanding inner dynamics and easing inner conflict. IFS views psychic multiplicity as the norm: we all have ‘parts’, competing voices, impulses and desires, which can, at times, express themselves in varying behaviours.

11.

Person Centred Therapy

Person Centred Therapy is a nondirective, empathic approach that empowers and motivates the client in the therapeutic process. The therapy is based on the belief that every human being strives for and has the capacity to fulfill his or her own potential.

12.

Polyvagal Therapy

Polyvagal Therapy works off of the premise that social engagement can work to allow you to learn to register your fear responses and recognise safety again. It concentrates on the regulation of the nervous system, which becomes disregulated due to traumas we have experienced throughout our lives.

13.

Psychodynamic Therapy

Psychodynamic Therapy helps you understand how your current feelings and behaviour are shaped by your past experiences and your unconscious mind and impulses.

14.

Psychosynthesis

Psychosynthesis is a holistic approach to helping the individual deal with dilemmas, conflicts and patterns of behaviours which inhibit or prevent living life in meaningful and fulfilling ways. It considers each individual unique in terms of purpose in life, and places value on the exploration of human potential. The approach combines spiritual development with psychological healing. Psychosynthesis is a liberating discipline – a map to help navigate human experience and a toolbox for life.

15.

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy is a short-term goal-focused evidence-based therapeutic approach, which incorporates positive psychology principles and practices, and which helps clients change by constructing solutions rather than focusing on problems. In the most basic sense, SFBT is a hope friendly, positive emotion eliciting, future-oriented vehicle for formulating, motivating, achieving, and sustaining desired behavioral change.

16.

Somatic Therapy

Somatic Therapy is a form of body-centered therapy that looks at the connection of mind and body and uses both psychotherapy and physical therapies for holistic healing.