Supportive psychotherapy

Supportive psychotherapy is a psychotherapeutic approach that integrates various therapeutic schools such as psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral, as well as interpersonal conceptual models and techniques. The aim of supportive psychotherapy is to reduce or to relieve the intensity of manifested or presenting symptoms, distress or disability. It also reduces the extent of behavioral disruptions caused by the patient's psychic conflicts or disturbances. Unlike in psychoanalysis, in which the analyst works to maintain a neutral demeanor as a "blank canvas" for transference, in supportive therapy the therapist engages in a fully emotional, encouraging, and supportive relationship with the patient as a method of furthering healthy defense mechanisms, especially in the context of interpersonal relationships. Supportive psychotherapy can be used as treatment for a variety of physical, mental, and emotional ailments, and consists of a variety of strategies and techniques in which therapists or other licensed professionals can treat their patients. The objective of the therapist is to reinforce the patient's healthy and adaptive patterns of thought behaviors in order to reduce the intrapsychic conflicts that produce symptoms of mental disorders. In the late 19th century, Sigmund Freud began to develop the techniques of psychoanalysis, which served as a foundation for all the other psychotherapeutic modalities. Freud found that by letting people talk freely about whatever came to mind (free association), they eventually revealed the origins of their psychological conflicts in disguised form. Upon hearing these confessions revealed through free association, the therapist would then interpret the unconscious cause for the patient’s symptoms. In the years following Freud’s development of psychoanalysis, this approach was seen as the default in treating mental illness in patients. Psychotherapists faced the problem of patients who were unanalyzable: those without the reflective capacity to hear interpretations, or with “pseudoneurotic schizophrenia”.

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Supportive psychotherapy

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