Greenberg on Changes in Psychotherapy

We live in the world of the quick fix. Over the past couple of decades we’ve become somewhat spoiled by the ready availability of fast solutions to problems ranging from a broken marriage to obesity, from the common cold to depression or other emotional issues.

Where once long-term therapy sessions were the treatment for those suffering from emotional or mental distress, the wide range of psychotropic drugs available today has resulted in many patients simply going to their family doctors for medications to relieve their symptoms.

Psychologist Dr. Leslie Greenberg, who will present the BYU Counseling Workshop on March 8–9, 2012, is one of the primary developers of emotion-focused therapy (EFT). Over his long career he has observed the advent of drug therapy and other changes.

“The changes are that (treatment) has become much more short term, symptom focused, giving people coping skills but not deeper-level change,” he said in a recent interview. “I think there is over-prescription of medication for mild distress, and this may lead people not to deal with reorganizing their lives in a healthier way with the use of psychotherapy. But medication is probably helpful for more-chronic disorders, especially in conjunction with psychotherapy.”

The use of more than one approach to treatment is another change he has observed—and he sees that change as a good thing. “Each approach has something important to offer,” he said. “It’s a matter of trying to integrate them according to the needs of the patient.”

Treatment also “has become more evidence based, so that there is more evidence that it works, at least for symptom change, and for what types of approaches seem to work, giving us a more scientifically based approach,” he explained.

But with his focus on emotions in therapy, Greenberg sees a potential negative side to the overuse use of some therapies.

On his website, www.emotionfocusedtherapy.org, he noted, “People can be helped through the modification of cognitions and the manipulation of neurochemicals—but with limits. Therapies that control emotions—such as cognitive therapy and medication management—have helped a large number of people. However, those therapies can be overused. Furthermore, there can be side effects. Today too many people are cutting themselves off from their feelings—cutting themselves off from too much of what makes them feel human and truly alive. We’re alive because we feel. Yes, some of our emotions should be tempered. But many of our emotions—including some we’d rather not feel—can lead us towards greater well-being—individually and in our relationships . . . if only we’d allow them to . . . . As human beings we must also acquire the courage and skills to work with our emotions.”

At the BYU Counseling Workshop, Greenberg will present training on emotion and its role in therapy, addressing emotion and emotional awareness in psychotherapy and focusing on identifying adaptive versus maladaptive emotions and primary versus secondary emotions.

<< Greenberg’s Emotion-focused Therapy