On July 2, 2024, the BC Ministry of Health designated Psychotherapy as a health profession under the Health Professions Act. Follow our four-part series to learn more about the history and work of the psychotherapy profession.
Psychotherapy is grounded in personal interaction between therapists and clients, with a goal of improving wellness or mental health for individuals, relationships, families, or groups through inviting change in behaviour, beliefs, emotions and thoughts
Clients
Many types of clients seek the services of psychotherapists, bringing various concerns with which they want to work.
An individual client might want to explore their experiences related to mood imbalances (anxiety, depression), gender identity or sexual orientation, being neurodivergent or living with a diagnosed mental illness. They might also bring existential and/or faith-based concerns surrounding the meaning of life, grief, loss, retirement or end-of-life decisions. In still other circumstances, the presenting concerns related to career choices, excelling at competitive sports, anger management, school performance, recovery from substance abuse or vulnerability to racism and other systemic oppressions.
In couples therapy, the psychotherapist is working to support the relationship as the ‘client’, with the focus on exploring issues of communication, power, trust, violence or emotional abuse, parenting style, loyalty and affairs, decisions regarding marriage, separation or divorce, adoption, blended family, polyamory or other lifestyle choices.
In organizational settings, a psychotherapist may work with a business, organization or team as the ‘client’ and the focus is on issues of vision, conflict management, communication, or goal-setting, while communities might face those problems plus those arising from racism and inter-generational trauma.
Psychotherapy can be effective with all these clients in part because it provides an arena in which the often-unacknowledged emotional components of these presenting problems are brought into focus for observation and understanding. For some practitioners, this occurs primarily via verbal interaction (perhaps with some behavioural role-playing) while for other approaches, there may be a greater focus on using nonverbal modalities to gain insight through developing inner, body-centered awareness of emotional experience and energy. These differences reflect the wide range of psychotherapeutic service delivery modalities.