(1) Both psychological counseling and psychotherapy emphasize the establishment of good interpersonal relationships in the course of work.
(2) The theories, methods and principles followed by psychological counseling and psychotherapy are consistent.
There is a difference between psychological counseling and psychotherapy:
(1) The objects of psychological counseling are mainly normal people with psychological confusion; The object of psychotherapy is people with mental illness.
(2) Psychological consultation follows the developmental education model; Psychotherapy follows the medical model.
(3) Psychological counseling focuses on preventing and promoting mental health; Psychotherapy focuses on remedy and correction.
Psychological counseling and psychotherapy are both professional psychological services. In fact, there is no essential difference between them. Whether in the nature of the relationship or in the process of change and learning, they are very similar in theory. If there is a difference, it is also considered, not essential. Let's talk about the difference between psychological counseling and psychotherapy.
On the Relationship between Psychological Counseling and Psychotherapy
First, the tasks of work are different.
The task of psychological counseling mainly lies in promoting growth, emphasizing the development mode, helping visitors to exert their greatest potential, clearing the roadblocks of normal development, and focusing on prevention. Psychotherapy is mostly to make up for the injuries that patients have formed in the past, and to solve and change the structural obstacles to development.
Second, objects and scenes are different.
Psychological counseling follows the educational model, and most of the visitors are normal objects, mainly involving daily life problems, and generally work in schools, units, psychological counseling institutions and other scenes. The object of psychotherapy is patients with abnormal psychology, which plays a role in both clinical and medical situations.
Third, the working methods are different.
Psychological counseling should involve visitors' living environment in more ways, such as participating in their direct environment, getting in touch with their families and relatives, making more use of daily living facilities (such as telephone consultation), designing and organizing classes and various group activities. The form of psychotherapy is more in pairs.
Fourth, the nature and content of solving problems are different.
Psychological counseling is realistic-oriented, involving consciousness issues, such as career choice, training and education, life and work guidance, study counseling and so on. Therefore, cognitive and logical methods are often used. Psychotherapy involves internal personality problems, and more is to deal with the unconscious.
Psychological counseling can help you know where your cause is and prescribe the right medicine. The counselor will also use her various methods to help you ease your psychological situation.
Baidu knows the difference between psychological counseling and psychotherapy.
According to the conventional literal understanding, consultation should be an inquiry about the uncertainty of a phenomenon, which may or may not be pathological. Treatment is a series of methods and measures that begin after the diagnosis of the disease.
As for the specific differences between the two, there are related articles for your reference-
Concepts and principles of psychological counseling
The word "consultation" means asking, discussing, suggesting, advising and helping others. Its earliest application was at the beginning of last century, when psychologists put forward valuable suggestions for people to choose careers. Later, consultation was widely used in all walks of life. Modern psychological counseling includes guidance and help for normal people and psychotherapy for mental patients. It involves vocational guidance, education consultation, mental health consultation, marriage and family consultation, etc. Since the beginning of this century, great changes have taken place in people's family structure, concepts and interpersonal relationships in western countries, especially in the United States and European countries. Traditional large families tend to decrease, while small families are increasing. Because there are too few adults in the family, once they encounter mental stimulation or difficulties, the support and solution they can get from inside the family is extremely limited. Furthermore, people pay more and more attention to their privacy, which not only means that families should keep privacy from the outside world, but also means privacy among family members. In addition, under the influence of western educational ideas, children need to be independent and set up a new door when they grow up to a certain age. These thoughts have a healthy and positive side, but they also affect the emotional communication and ideological communication between them. In the past 20 years, the development of urbanization and the acceleration of social life in China, as well as the increase of floating population, have made the communication between people more and more superficial, lacking in-depth communication and emotional communication, and the traditional human consciousness has become increasingly weak. As a result of these factors, the traditional social support network from family members has been greatly weakened. At this time, when people encounter psychological difficulties, they have to turn to psychological counselors.
With the development of economy and the improvement of cultural level, psychological counseling is gradually accepted and recognized by people. The current psychological counseling craze is an obvious example. Cross-cultural studies have found that in some areas with underdeveloped economy and low education level, people do not understand and accept psychological counseling. They think that if you are sick, you should take medicine, and you should solve the problem by inputting real therapeutic drugs and surgery. If talking to them can cure diseases, they will regard it as a fantasy. Only when people's cultural level and material civilization develop to a certain extent can people gradually understand that psychological factors can act on the occurrence and prognosis of diseases like biological factors.
What is the theoretical basis of psychotherapy?
Various contemporary psychotherapy factions have developed on the basis of different theories. The founders of these psychotherapy factions lived in different times and societies and were influenced by philosophy, education and social experience. Their understanding of psychological phenomena and human behavior, and their understanding of morbid psychology and morbid behavior have formed their own distinct ideological systems. In practice, they explored a series of countermeasures to correct pathological psychology and pathological behavior and promote mental health, and established unique psychotherapy techniques. Then sum up the successful experience in theory, put forward the hypothesis and form the theoretical basis of its psychotherapy. It can be said that psychotherapy theory not only reflects the founder's understanding of normal psychology and psychological obstacles, but also is an important pillar for the further development of psychotherapy technology. Freud's psychoanalytic technique was explored in his medical practice. He was not satisfied with the effect of hypnotherapy, and found that concentration and free association were more convenient and effective for restoring patients' forgotten memories and eliminating symptoms. He re-recognized and explained the phenomena observed in the treatment, put forward the concepts of resistance and depression (potential inhibition), and further developed them into subconscious theory, sexual psychology theory and psychological structure theory. These basic theories, together with the neuropsychological hypothesis of neurosis, constitute the theoretical basis of psychoanalysis technology. These theories systematically reflected Freud's understanding of normal psychology and morbid psychology, explained the therapeutic mechanism of psychoanalysis, and later promoted the further development of psychoanalysis, which prevailed in European and American countries from 1920s to 1950s. Adler, Jung, Luanke, Horney, Fromm, Eriksson, Sullivan and others studied Freud's psychoanalytic theory, revised and supplemented some of them respectively, put forward a new theoretical system, and established individual psychology, analytical psychology, labor anxiety theory and various social and cultural schools. Psychoanalysis technology has been improved accordingly and developed into modern psychoanalytic psychotherapy, or collectively referred to as psychodynamic therapy.
Rogers's "client-centered" non-directive psychotherapy emphasizes that human beings have great potential to understand their own existence and change their behavior constructively, and have the basic behavioral tendency of self-realization; This is innate. Under certain circumstances, this potential can be fully exerted to ensure its own existence and promote its own development. The goal of psychotherapy is not to address the problems faced by visitors, but to enable visitors to correctly experience their own contradictions and conflicts again in the process of establishing a sincere relationship with therapists, thus promoting the realization of their own potential. The establishment of this theory has its humanistic psychological roots, emphasizing human dignity and value, attaching importance to the display of internal potential and self-realization, but it is also influenced by the philosophical trend of phenomenology. According to the concept of phenomenology, Rogers believes that in the process of psychotherapy, we should try our best to understand the phenomenon world of visitors and change his phenomenon world. Therapists put themselves in the client's mind, which is the only way to understand the client's phenomenal world, and providing the client with ideal interpersonal relationships is the best way to change his phenomenal world. Changes in the phenomenon world will naturally lead to changes in its behavior. Rogers objected to therapists imposing foreign opinions on clients. He said, "If I don't impose on others, they will show their true nature." This "non-directional" principle embodies the philosophy of China and Laozi that "I am idle and the people are self-sufficient, I am quiet and the people are self-sufficient, I am idle and the people are rich, and I have no desire and the people are simple".
Behavioral therapy is developed on the basis of a series of modern learning theories such as Thorndike's classical learning theory, Watson's behavioral psychology, Pavlov's classical conditioning theory and Skinner's operational conditioning theory. These theories are based on animal experiments and observation of human behavior. Learning theory holds that all kinds of human behaviors, including adaptive behaviors and non-adaptive behaviors, are learned. Individual's morbid behavior is non-adaptive behavior acquired through social environment, which can be eliminated by "canceling learning". The purpose of behavioral therapy is to correct all kinds of pathological behaviors through learning and training, so that individuals can adapt to their social environment well. Behavior correction technology makes full use of the principle of strengthening and weakening conditioned reflex and the law of learning effect to play its therapeutic role. The rise of behavioral therapy poses a severe challenge to psychoanalysis in theory and practice.
Another kind of psychotherapy is developed on the basis of the theory that rational thinking and cognitive activities play a decisive role. Iris believes that human behavior can be divided into rational behavior and irrational behavior. Acting according to rational thinking can make people's lives fruitful, happy and successful. Psychological barriers are related to inappropriate expectations and irrational thinking. Teaching the patient to think rationally will enable him to overcome obstacles. On the basis of this theory, Ellis founded rational psychotherapy, or rational emotional psychotherapy. Baker's cognitive therapy is also developed on the basis of similarity theory. Baker believes that most patients' problems stem from some distorted understanding of reality, which is based on wrong premises and assumptions. Therefore, the task of therapists is to help patients understand what is distorted and learn to deal with reality in a more realistic way.
Psychoanalysis, behavioral therapy and cognitive therapy are three main theoretical systems in psychotherapy. In addition, there are all kinds of psychotherapy, all based on their own theories. For example, pars's gestalt psychotherapy emphasizes the holistic view of gestalt psychology. Frank's existential consciousness therapy is guided by existential philosophy. Family therapy regards the family as an interactive system with a process of circular feedback. The psychological obstacles of family members are often not caused by individuals, but by family marriage and family communication obstacles. It is difficult to list the theoretical basis of other psychotherapy here. However, it is worth pointing out that in recent 20 years, there has been a trend in modern psychotherapy, that is, psychotherapy of different natures has been integrated and applied to develop into new psychotherapy, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, which is formed by introducing cognitive factors into behavioral therapy. This trend has become a new school of psychotherapy, that is, eclectic psychotherapy. Some psychotherapists believe that so far, there is no special psychotherapy theory that can convince everyone completely, but all of them can play their role in treating diseases in medical practice. So some clinicians don't stick to a single theoretical system, combine different treatment methods, collect the strengths of various psychotherapy schools, take their essence and use them flexibly; But failed to form a unified theoretical system. Its ideological influence can be traced back to American psychologists James, Wu Weishi and psychiatrist Meyer.
As for general psychotherapy, such as supportive psychotherapy, it has not formed a complete theoretical system, nor is it based on any single theory. Therapists often give comfort, encouragement, persuasion, explanation, suggestion or guarantee according to their own understanding of patients' psychological obstacles, so as to enhance patients' sense of security and stress ability and successfully tide over the crisis.