What Kind of Therapy Do I Need?

What type of therapy approach should I look for when deciding who to choose as my therapist?

There are a LOT of therapeutic modalities (i.e., approaches and theories that therapists base their practice/techniques/world views) out there. So, it can be very difficult when searching for a therapist to find one that really works for you and fits your needs. I’ve decided to slim it all down to help you better understand which therapeutic approach works best for you.

DBT – Dialectical Behavioral Therapy: Struggles Regulating Emotions
DBT is one of my favorite approaches. Not only because of the history of the theoretic approach, but also because it freakin’ works. I’ve had clients refer to it as “magic” and I completely agree. It’s something that I have personally used to help me. 

DBT was designed by a woman named Marsha Linehan. Marsha was struggling with BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder). Borderline is a disorder in which people struggle tremendously with intense emotion dysregulation, hyper fear of abandonment, suicidality, and self-hatred. It’s an exhausting issue to deal with and they are often very isolated from intimate relationships due to their struggles with regulating their emotions and impulsive behaviors. 

Marsha was in and out of psychiatric wards when she was younger. The professionals there were extremely unhelpful. So, like a bad ass, she went to graduate school and decided to create her own theory to help people actually cope with BPD. What’s incredible is that thanks to her, there is now a “cure” for BPD because of her very clear, easy to follow techniques. 

Now, you may be saying… “But I don’t have BPD, so how would this help me?” Easy. Everyone struggles with regulating their emotions and seeing reality in clear way. DBT is a great approach if you want to learn skills on interpersonal communication (i.e., how you work through conflict, state your needs/boundaries, etc). 

There’s an app that I recommend to my clients that is very helpful. It’s called DBT Coach. (No, this is not a sponsored ad, though I’d gladly welcome them to pay me because I know it works!)

Jungian/Shadow Work: Self-sabotaging Behavior and Self-compassion
The second modality is Shadow Work. Carl Jung is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who worked with Freud. Now, in modern times, most therapists don’t really follow Freud’s theories, however, Freud was the person who discovered that we have an unconscious mind. Which is HUGE. Jung decided to take Freud’s approach and mold it in a way that seemed to suit him better. He discovered what we call Shadows (AKA, unconscious mind). He theorized that we were taught somewhere along the way that certain behaviors/beliefs are bad. And therefore we store them in our unconscious mind. These shadows secretly run everything we do and until we see them and build a relationship with them, they will continue to run our lives without our consent. 

This approach is great if you feel that you keep sabotaging your life and you have no idea what you’re doing wrong and how you got to where you are. This is also a great approach for building self-compassion because Jung argues that we should love our light AND shadow sides. In fact, the shadow is extremely powerful and beautiful! 

This approach is something I hold dear as it has personally changed my life and helped me actually find self-love and compassion. I’ve watched it help my clients as well.

Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy: Second Phase of Growth When You’re Stuck
When you’ve exhausted different therapeutic options and you feel like you know yourself and your history quite well, psychedelic assisted psychotherapy can help you get unstuck. This is great for “treatment resistant” issues like anxiety and panic, depression, existential issues, suicidality, terminal illness, PTSD and many more.

Now, I can’t speak officially on psilocybin, however, I have personally found psilocybin (AKA, magic mushrooms) to be wildly helpful especially when microdosed. However, here in Colorado, they have decriminalized mushrooms and therapists will soon be able to incorporate them into our therapeutic work (it’s 2024 currently as I write this). 

What is already working is ketamine. Ketamine has been found to be effective in people with depression, especially those who have bipolar depression. If you’d like to learn more about this, I recommend listening to my mentor’s podcast: Back from the Abyss: Psychiatry in Stories.
Dr. Craig Heacock is an expert in the field of psychedelics in therapy and has a lot of great insight into this. 

The Gottman Method: Couples Therapy with Lots of Research
If you’re on the search for couple’s therapy or if you’re wanting to do relationship therapy for just yourself, the Gottman Method is a great start to the search. Dr. John and Julie Gottman are a couple who have studied couples over the past 50+ years and have discovered so much about how healthy relationships work. They can predict within the first 10 minutes of meeting a couple whether or not they will “make it” with 90% accuracy. If that doesn’t light your fire, I don’t know what will! 

This approach is really good if you are new to therapy as a couple and really want a structured approach. The research and clear guidance will help you and your sweetie navigate modern day relationship issues together and really push through those moments of being stuck and build deeper intimacy.

Narrative Therapy: Restructuring How You View the World
If you are someone who hates being told what to do but wants to understand yourself better and reach your own conclusions, then narrative therapy is for you. Narrative therapy is an approach that help you identify your current worldview. Whether that’s your view on the outside world, your internal views of yourself, or your interpretations of others, Narrative Therapy will help you really get to know the depths of yourself without a lot of structure. 

What I mean by structure is that some therapeutic modalities will have specific techniques that you can try that have a very specific “do this, not that” mentality. With Narrative Therapy, you are stepping into a more existential view of yourself and seeing how your perceptions are impacting your relationship with yourself, with others, and the world around you. This is personally one of my favorites as I do not like being told what to do. As a creative person, I love discovering things on my own and finding new ways to do things that haven’t been tried before. 

I’d say this is good for people who are just starting out in therapy and are just discovering who they are but aren’t really ready to make changes just yet. 

IFS – Internal Family Systems: Self-compassion
If you were a fan of the Shadow Work description, then IFS is the other route for you. Similar to Shadow Work, you are going to experience yourself in a new light. You know those moments when you are thinking to yourself, “A part of me wants to do this, but another part of me is saying not to…”? Well, IFS helps you break those parts out, name them, and get to know them individually. The theory behind this is that we have different roles that play into who we are and how we decide what to do. Specifically 4 parts: 

• Exile (what I call the inner child): This is the part of us that carries all our traumas and big emotions.
• Manager: The parts of us that try to prevent suffering.
• Firefighter: The parts of us that respond to suffering.
• Core Self: The part of us that is able to observe all the other parts.

What is great about this approach is that you are able to identify where behaviors are coming from and assign them new roles to play in your life and accomplish the goals of protecting you without sabotaging you. 

Art Therapy: An Alternative Approach to Trauma
Sometimes trauma is very difficult to discuss or process. When we repress certain events that occurred, it is often difficult to add language to what has happened to us. Therefore using art as a way to access different parts of our brains and emotions can help to heal your trauma in a non-direct way. Being able to be “seen” emotionally through art can help tremendously. 

This type of therapy can include things like painting, coloring, drawing, etc. The art therapist is then able to interpret with you what these different colors, lines, etc mean to you and how they represent your internal world. It’s a great way to unveil things that you didn’t know existed before.

EMDR – Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing: When You Have Trauma and It’s Difficult to Talk About
Along with art therapy, EMDR is a clinically proven way to help some people be able to process their trauma without having to verbalize it. Discussing and remembering details of past traumas can send you into a flashback or trigger fight/flight response in your nervous system which makes it extremely difficult to process what has happened. With EMDR, you are able to stay present in the room by following a bilateral movement with your eyes while recalling traumatic memories without stimulating the trauma responses in the body. 

So, if you have trauma that is too difficult for you to discuss in talk therapy, EMDR may be a quick option to help you process through the trauma and release its hold on your life.

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It can seem daunting to find a therapist that is a good fit. I just say to trust your gut, meet with them 2-3 times before making a decision. 

If you’re needing to know where to go to find a therapist, check out my post 4 Easy Ways to Find a Therapist Near You. If you are curious what type of professional you’re needing, I break it down for you in my blog post What’s the Difference Between a Therapist, Psychologist, and Psychiatrist?