Introduction to Psychotherapy

elective courses

The lecture presents the main psychotherapy schools, basic results of psychotherapy research, different contexts of psychotherapy usage, and career paths for psychotherapists.

This is an introductory lecture to the “Psychotherapy” specialization. Main goal of the course is to create a broad mental map of the psychotherapy

field that will allow to assimilate in an effective way new knowledge and skills taught during other classes from psychotherapy specialization. The lectures will include presentations of the main psychotherapy schools: psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy, behavior therapy,

cognitive therapy, person-centered therapy, existential psychotherapy, integrative and eclectic psychotherapy (including multimodal therapy and Wachtel’s behavioral-psychoanalytical psychotherapy) and new developments in psychotherapy. The second part of the lecture focuses on the research in psychotherapy: methodological issues and results of effectiveness and process-oriented empirical studies. Though the focus of the lecture is on individual psychotherapy of adults, in the third part of the lecture there will be time to discuss psychotherapy of families, couples and groups. Moreover, in the part III “Practice” the issue of technology in therapy will be also covered. At the end of the course the issue of psychotherapy as a profession will be discussed. During this final classes we would like to answer questions like “what is the motivation to become psychotherapist?”, “what is the role of supervision and self-experience in the process of psychotherapists’ education?”, “what are the career paths in psychotherapy field?”. The very final class will be about specificity of psychotherapeutic treatment of severely disturbed patients at the inpatients psychiatric wards, especially people diagnosed with schizophrenia.

1. The student demonstrates basic knowledge of theories and techniques applied in psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral

psychotherapies, humanistic-existential, systemic and integrative/eclectic psychotherapies.

2. The student demonstrates knowledge of basic results of the studies on psychotherapy process and effectiveness. She or he is acquainted

with basic methods used in psychotherapy research.

3. The student demonstrates basic knowledge of the possible usage of technologies in psychotherapy.

4. The student is acquainted with a variety of forms (individual, group, family, couple therapy), contexts of applying psychotherapy (e.g. individual practice, psychiatric ward) and the necessary conditions to become psychotherapists.