Eclectic
“Eclectic” highlights the need for the therapist and patient to keep an “open door” to a variety of therapeutic approaches during the course of treatment. It is an acknowledgement that multiple psychological strategies might be appropriately applied during the course of a patient’s treatment in order to most effectively deal with an individual’s problems.
A patient may have started therapy to overcome a fear of public speaking and find, in the course of examining his inner commentary on performance, that he has a deep belief that people are punitive, critical and uncaring. He comes to suspect that this underlying attitude is responsible for many of his longstanding relationship difficulties. He masters his performance anxiety through self-hypnosis or CBT, but continues with a new focus on understanding how he has “destructed” his life to accommodate his fears of others.
Or, a patient who comes for biofeedback training to manage chronic pain finds that she is unable to decrease her hyper vigilance as she realizes that the effort to achieve relaxation triggers a memory of abuse that she will then wish to address.
Or, a patient in analysis develops a checking compulsion that interferes with her work. CBT might be used to keep her from losing her job, while she continues her ongoing treatment.
Psychological Solutions is an eclectic practice in that we hope to make available to patients the best resources for working with a wide range of issues.
