Supportive Psychotherapy - Listening, Support, and Empathy

Introduction

Numerous disorders and dreadful diseases take away the patient’s hope, culminating in distorted thought patterns. The psychic disruptions and lack of support are the reasons behind this. So, supportive psychotherapy is meant to be the appropriate approach to managing the disease through reinforcement. Supportive therapy assimilates cognitive behavioral therapy, psychodynamic therapy, and interpersonal psychotherapy.

What Is Supportive Psychotherapy?

Supportive psychotherapy is a psychotherapeutic intervention applied to managing psychological, medical, and extra-psychic illnesses. It is a talkative approach that allows patients to have their say about emotions and concerns. And the patient, in succession, receives sound support and encouragement in unearthing the solutions. The therapy aims to relieve the severity of symptoms, stress, distress, and disability. Unfortunately, it also perpetuates the adverse thoughts and disorganized behavior of the patient’s psychic conflicts.

What Is Supportive Therapy?

Supporting psychotherapy, sometimes referred to as supporting therapy, is primarily concerned with assisting individuals with resolving critical and current problems, such as relationship problems, family disputes, or stress from the workplace. Before facing a painful past that seems too much of a challenge to handle head-on, this therapeutic approach can help people feel better mentally overall.

How Does Supportive Psychotherapy Work?

Unlike the most common psychotherapies, supportive psychotherapy is less structured. However, as all therapies rely on building trust and rapport between the client and therapist, supportive psychotherapy substantially culminates in creating and reinforcing bonds throughout the treatment. Therefore, the main goal is to achieve a therapeutic alliance through the connection, the client’s potential, and the therapist’s empathy.

Similar to other therapies, supportive psychotherapy incorporates sessions. And, though supportive therapy is not time-limited, it is considered long-term therapy. The long-term is attributable to imposing trust through time, as the therapy accredits alliance-building. But the frequency of sessions depends on the intervention's goal and the client's dilemma.

Techniques of Supportive Psychotherapy: The therapist carries out an utterly emotional, motivating, yet supportive connection with the client to alleviate the symptoms and reinforce the sound and adaptive thought patterns in them. Supportive psychotherapy utilizes specific techniques and strategies to implement them.

Listening: The listening skill is considered to be the most powerful one. This is meant for how the client seems attentive and intends to lead the sessions. Hearing skills, conscientious attentiveness, body language, and emotional tone pave the way for compelling listening.

Plussing: Plussing is all about advancing a healthy, positive environment in therapy. This can be primarily achieved by identifying the good deeds in the client and emphasizing positivity. The therapist will guide the patient to look for a positive outcome even if it doesn’t turn out.

Explaining Behavior: Patients with psycho-related conditions bear a complex and overwhelming compulsion. So, to lead them to the themes of contentment and defense, the therapist utilizes behavioral explanations.

Advice: The therapist also offers advice when the patient seems connected to their goals.

Confrontation: Through the strategy called confrontation, the therapist allows the patient to open up about their thoughts and behavior patterns that are stimulating their mental health problems. In addition, the therapist will make them understand how these patterns affect them.

Reframing: Reframing allows the client to think from different angles so that he comes up with new thoughts and perceptions.

Encouragement: Knowing the client's strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, and history, the therapist will then aid in encouragement accordingly. Eventually, this would cheer and fortify new achievements and positive deeds so that he would take further steps toward the goal.

Hope: The hope itself allows the client to observe the changes.

Metaphor: Using metaphors is a stimulating approach in supportive psychotherapy.

Self-Soothing: Self-soothing is a strategy to provide a client with the required tools to develop self-soothing. This seems largely effective for patients encountering mood swings, addiction, substance use, and mischief.

Coping Skills: Coping skills encompass coping strategies and certain mantras for relief and healing.

Creative Opportunities: These are opportunities to express their emotions and themselves. The outlet for showcasing includes story narrating, making cards, writing letters, and journaling.

Awareness: Through sessions, the therapist proceeds to develop an awareness of self, the condition, intervention, and quality of life.

What Are the Applications of Supportive Psychotherapy?

Supportive psychotherapy deals with alleviating symptoms and emotional concerns. Improvement of one’s self-esteem is also something to look for. Hence, supportive psychotherapy is effective in treating various cognitive conditions. In addition, it has several effects on extra-psychic issues that cause the person to be overwhelmed.

• Depression.

• Anxiety.

• Bipolar disorders.

• Schizophrenia.

• Personality disorders.

• Eating disorders.

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder.

• Substance use disorders.

• Postpartum depression.

• Relationship issues and conflicts.

• Emotional regulation.

• Social and political oppression.

• Distorted thoughts and behavior.

• In addition, supportive psychotherapy is effective in coping with patients of certain general medical conditions and diseases. The therapy works on modifying thoughts about life and entities.

• Diabetes.

• Breast cancer.

• Ovarian cancer.

• Leukemia (a cancer condition of blood-forming tissues).

• Heart diseases.

• Back pain.

• Chronic bronchitis (an inflammatory condition of bronchial tubes).

• Emphysema (a respiratory disease characterized by air-filled spaces in the lungs).

• Inflammatory bowel disease.

• Patients under hemodialysis.

How Effective Is Supportive Psychotherapy?

• Supportive psychotherapy operates effectively and is designed to promote therapeutic alliances in any medical and emotional concerns. The therapy holds a less structured therapeutic environment, making it easily accessible to any client. The effectiveness is exceedingly proven in the below considerations.

• A clinical-trial-based study determines the effectiveness of supportive therapy on depression and anxiety in patients under fiberoptic bronchoscope procedures.

• Researchers cited that supportive psychotherapy is as effective as antidepressant medications in the initial intervention stage for individuals with moderate to severe depression.

• Also, supportive therapy is as effective as psychoanalysis, as per the shreds of evidence.

• Supportive psychotherapy is associated with changing the quality of life. Thus, medical researchers investigated the effectiveness of the intervention on HIV-positive patients' quality of life.

• Supportive psychotherapy can help with social isolation and marginalization.

Conclusion

Supportive psychotherapy is a kind of therapeutic approach aiming to provide encouragement, emotional support, and guidance for people encountering distressing and challenging life situations. So, it concentrates on augmenting the individual’s self-esteem, self-confidence, coping skills, well-being, and overall quality of life. This particular therapy involves a collaborative and trusted client-therapist relationship. Here, the therapist serves validation, empathy, and awareness, making a safe place for clients to address their beliefs, thoughts, and feelings.