If this guide helps you choose a path to the kind of therapy that will be appropriate and useful to you, it will have done something worthwhile. A guide to counseling and psychotherapy should, however, do more than this.
OVERCOMING ISOLATION AND GETTING STARTED
People who are troubled tend to try to hide it. They frequently isolate themselves when they are distressed, so overcoming the desire to withdraw is the first order of business if they are to improve their lives and feelings.
One of the things this book sets out to do is to help you see that very likely the problems you are facing are not one of a kind. You have a lot of company; the difficulties you are having are probably very familiar to counselors and therapists. Realize that there are ways of resolving most problems and that doing so often is easier with the sympathy, empathy, moral support, friendship, or direction of a counselor or therapist than by yourself.
CAN YOU HELP YOURSELF?
However, sometimes it is possible to help yourself a great deal through your own initiative. This book will describe ways that you can be your own source of help and will pay particular attention to when it may be appropriate and safe to rely upon inner resources.
CLEARING THE CONFUSING JUNGLE
Most people are not familiar with the differences among the main kinds of "psychosocial" helping professionals—the various types of counselors, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, social workers, etc. Another purpose of this book is to clarify these labels, to describe how the approaches used by their practitioners are distinct and how they are similar, and to give an idea of how their fees and durations of treatment vary.
Individual chapters in Part II are devoted to describing the main varieties of therapy available today: psychoanalysis; psychotherapies; behavior-changing therapies; marriage and family therapy; group therapies; exercise, biofeedback, relaxation, hypnosis, and meditation; and drug therapy. Each approach will be described in the context of experiencing professional help and in terms of how and when it may be possible to apply the approach on your own. These chapters will help you understand what in general to expect if you choose a particular kind of treatment, how the course of treatment may go, and what point of view is shared by professionals who use it.
FINDING SOMEONE TO HELP