There is evidence that combining two therapies for certain problems can frequently be more effective than using either in isolation. Treatment for individuals suffering from severe anxiety or depression often will combine drug therapy, for example, with one of the fourteen approaches to therapy described in Chapters 9-12 and 14 (and listed below, under "A"). Or, individuals who have problems due to excessive stress may, for example, be advised to combine biofeedback, relaxation training, hypnosis, meditation, or exercise therapy with a form of psychotherapy.
Usually, when therapies are combined, one is a formal psychotherapy and the other is an adjunctive therapy—that is, a therapy that most often is not relied on exclusively. Some adjunctive therapies lend themselves very well to use by individuals on their own. Combined treatments tend, then, to employ one approach taken from list A and one from list B:
A (Main Therapies)
Psychoanalysis
Client-centered therapy
Gestalt therapy
Transactional analysis
Rational-emotive therapy
Existential-humanistic therapy
Logotherapy
Reality therapy
Adlerian therapy
Direct decision therapy
Behavior modification
Cognitive approaches to behavior change
Marriage and family therapy
B (Adjunctive Therapies)
Drug therapy
Meditation
Hypnosis
Relaxation training
Biofeedback
Therapeutic exercise
Approaches That May Appear Under Either A or B
Bioenergetics
Primal therapy
Implosive therapy
Counter-conditioning
Group therapy