Mental Health
May, 10 2023 Connections Health Solutions
Counseling can help you understand how your thoughts affect your feelings, change unhealthy behaviors, feel more confident when facing challenges, heal from past traumas, and much more. Sometimes, it only takes a few counseling sessions to accomplish your goals. Other times, long-term counseling is the best option.
What is Long-Term Counseling?
Long-term counseling involves going to therapy sessions over the course of several months or years, giving you time to work through complex and ongoing issues. This type of counseling can be especially helpful if a problem has been affecting you for a long time, if a problem is having negative effects on different areas of your life such as your relationships or your health, if you don’t have healthy coping skills, or if you constantly have negative thoughts and you find it difficult to think positively. Long-term counseling may take a deeper dive into how your past experiences and current thoughts affect your current day-to-day life.
Short-term counseling, on the other hand, typically lasts only a few weeks or months and is best suited for dealing with more immediate issues or situational problems. It can be a good option if you’re struggling at work, are having issues in your relationship, or are struggling to manage stress is a healthy way.
Types of Long-Term Counseling
Two common types of long-term counseling include psychodynamic therapy and psychoanalytic therapy. A therapist or counselor can help you decide which type might be most beneficial for you based on your unique needs.
Psychodynamic Therapy
Psychodynamic therapy explores how events from your past are influencing the way you feel in the present. This type of therapy can be effective for anxiety, depression, and other mental health symptoms.
Psychoanalytic Therapy
Psychoanalytic therapy explores how events in early childhood affect your current worries or ways of thinking. By talking about your life, you and your therapist may discover trends or events that are playing a role in your current behavior.
Benefits of Long-Term Counseling
Counseling in general can help you manage stress, change your unhealthy behaviors, deal with past experiences, and improve your mental health. Long-term counseling offers additional benefits for your mental health. Since long-term counseling involves many sessions spread out over an extended period of time, you and your therapist have more time to work through issues or challenges you’re facing. This also allows your therapist to treat more complex issues that may not be easily resolved in just a few sessions. Long-term counseling can help you understand how your past is affecting your present, how to heal from negative experiences in the past, and how to make changes in your present life to improve your mental health and overall well-being.
Want to Learn More?
Connections Health Solutions is dedicated to helping people get the compassionate mental health care they need, when they need it. To learn more about counseling and explore additional mental health resources, visit our resources page. You can also follow us on social media on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
Sources
https://www.iomcworld.org/open-access/psychoanalytic-therapy-process-and-benefits-70273.html
https://www.psychology.org/resources/what-is-psychodynamic-therapy
https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2010/01/psychodynamic-therapy
https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/psychotherapy