7 types of therapy to improve your mental well-being

In the same way you would see a doctor or physical therapist to get your physical health back on track, a psychotherapist can help you improve your mental health. 

The 2023 U.S. State of Mental Health report found over 50 million adults are currently experiencing mental illness, and 2.7 million youth are experiencing severe major depression. Chances are you’ve experienced mental health challenges as well. Fast-paced work environments with toxic management can contribute to burnout, while financial, housing, and health struggles at home can also be huge contributors.

Whether you’re dealing with mental health struggles arising from your work or other areas of your life, know that therapy exists to help with these challenges. Let’s get acquainted with some of the most popular types of therapy available so you can find the support you need to thrive.

7 common types of therapy for improving your mental health

With so many different approaches out there, it may be difficult to know which type of therapy is best for treating your mental health conditions. 

These seven approaches are some of the most common and effective types of psychotherapy for conditions ranging from anxiety to trauma:

1. Psychodynamic therapy

2. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)

3. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)

4. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)

5. Interpersonal therapy (IPT)

6. Humanistic therapy

7. Holistic therapy

1. Psychodynamic therapy

What is psychodynamic therapy?

Psychodynamic therapy helps you become more aware of unconscious thoughts and feelings. This helps you see how the past may influence your relationships and behavior in the present. With greater self-awareness and understanding of how your emotions impact your choices and behavior, you can become more confident and manage difficulties that arise in the future. 

This type of psychotherapy, or talk therapy, can also help you address past trauma.

Trauma is unique: Trauma can be triggered by many different situations. Because people experience situations differently, what can be distressing or paralyzing for one person may not be for someone else. For example, having to work with a toxic boss may feel traumatic for someone who grew up with an abusive parent who treated them with anger or disdain. For someone else, the same work situation may be upsetting but not considered triggering.

How does psychodynamic therapy work?

There are many techniques and areas of focus a mental health professional can use during psychodynamic therapy, including the following: 

• Free association: You’re encouraged to chat about whatever crosses your mind—no topic is too tangential or “out there.”

• Emotions: The question “How does that make you feel?” may put your defenses up, but there’s a reason therapists often ask about your feelings. Identifying and processing emotions can help you better manage negative feelings like anger and frustration, as well as better understand patterns of behavior and your relationships.

• Content vs. process: Content refers to what you say during a therapy session, while process refers to how this information is presented. By analyzing both, your therapist can spot non-verbal clues like hand gestures, breathing, and facial expressions that can add details about the emotions related to what you’re saying.

What conditions can psychodynamic therapy help with?

Psychodynamic therapy is typically helpful for these types of mental health conditions:

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Eating disorders

• Substance use problems

• Chronic pain

• Trauma

2. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)

What is CBT?

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) works to change negative thought patterns by helping you recognize thought distortions—irrational thoughts that result in inaccurate perceptions of your life—and use problem-solving skills or specific actions to deal with difficult challenges. 

Thought distortions can greatly affect your self-esteem and hold you back from achieving your goals, both personally and professionally. This may look like all-or-nothing thinking, which refers to negative internal messages like “If I don’t get promoted, I’m a failure.” By addressing thought distortions, cognitive therapy builds coping skills to assist not only with present issues but also with future problems. 

However, unlike psychodynamic therapy, CBT focuses on what’s currently going on in your life rather than past experiences. 

How does CBT work?

CBT may use exercises both during therapy sessions and as homework. These exercises are usually built around developing skills to help you change your behaviors, such as role-playing and breathing exercises to calm and relax your body.

Other ways therapists might approach CBT include:

• Aversion therapy: This helps you associate a behavior you want to let go of by pairing that behavior with an unpleasant sensation or feeling.

• Exposure therapy:  By exposing you to something you fear, this approach can help you lessen the fear and anxiety and make you less likely to avoid it—a process called cognitive restructuring. Exposure therapy should only be initiated and guided by an experienced professional.

• Journaling: Your therapist may ask you to keep a log of negative thoughts or emotions. By writing them down, you can begin to notice patterns in thoughts and behaviors that increase or decrease your stress levels. Recognizing these patterns allows you to apply the skills you’ve gained during your therapy sessions to move toward more positive behaviors. As well as gaining clarity or insight into your thoughts and feelings, journaling can be a therapeutic release.

• Progressive muscle relaxation: A method of full-body relaxation, progressive muscle relaxation involves systematically tensing and relaxing one muscle group at a time. For example, you may start by tensing the muscles in your face and neck, then relaxing them, and then doing the same for each muscle group as you work your way down the body to your feet. This helps to relieve muscle tension that accompanies stress and anxiety. 

• Role-playing: A therapist may ask you to act out a situation to practice new skills, such as effective communication. Role-playing can help ease the apprehension and anxiety you may feel about certain scenarios by allowing you to practice using skills before using them in a real-life situation. For example, you could role-play asking for a raise before actually confronting your boss.

• Systematic desensitization: This involves using relaxation methods as you gradually expose yourself to something you fear so that you can learn to respond to things or situations or people with less apprehension and more ease. While similar to exposure therapy, systematic desensitization is a slower, more gradual approach to exposing yourself to triggers over a long period of time.

What conditions can CBT help with?

Cognitive behavioral therapy can help with a wide range of mental health problems, including the following:

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Substance use problems

• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

• Bipolar disorder

• Schizophrenia

• Phobias

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

3. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)

What is DBT?

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a mindfulness-based therapy that focuses on accepting your behaviors and experiences as real or valid while also making positive changes to deal with difficult emotions. It’s called “dialectical” because it focuses on two strategies that seem like opposites: acceptance and change. 

How does DBT work?

Your therapist will likely focus on developing four skills during your DBT sessions: emotional regulation, distress tolerance, mindfulness, and interpersonal effectiveness. They may use talk therapy, coaching, or even group therapy exercises to help you build these skills.

• Emotional regulation: Emotions can become overwhelming, especially if you end up with a cascade of feelings such as frustration leading to shame and then depression. By learning how to recognize emotions and not judge them, you can build healthier emotional resilience.

• Distress tolerance: DBT also helps you build resilience by learning to tolerate distress so that you can get through tough times without reverting to destructive behaviors. Being taught healthy coping strategies such as self-soothing also helps you to manage difficult situations. 

• Mindfulness: Becoming more mindful helps you gain awareness of what’s happening around you and accept your emotions without judgment or shame.

• Interpersonal effectiveness: Understanding your own emotions can help you better understand how others feel as well. This skill will also help you learn how to ask for what you want or need, work through conflict, and establish and respect your own boundaries.

What conditions can DBT help with?

While it was originally used to treat borderline personality disorder (BPD), DBT can also help with:

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Eating disorders

• Substance use problems

• PTSD

4. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)

What is EMDR?

Originally created to address the distress of traumatic memories, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) has been shown to provide a range of healing effects for people who have experienced trauma. Healing includes reprocessing trauma to desensitize the person to external stimuli that might otherwise trigger distress, such as certain noises, scents, and situations. This in turn enhances quality of life.

People with PTSD often re-experience traumatic events in flashbacks, which can be severely disruptive to daily activities. They may stop leaving their homes or avoid specific situations or stimuli that remind them of their trauma.

While there’s no research that states conclusively that EMDR is the most effective form of therapy for treating PTSD, many studies show positive results —including better results when compared with cognitive behavioral therapy.

How does EMDR work?

EMDR therapy requires a patient to re-experience a disturbing event in small doses, during which the therapist directs them to make lateral eye movements. These eye movements are sometimes also accompanied by other activities like hand tapping or audio stimulation. 

Though it hasn’t fully been proven, scientists believe that revisiting traumatic experiences while moving one’s eyes in a lateral motion allows the brain to process a disturbing memory and forge new associations with that memory. This allows the person to become desensitized to external stimuli that previously caused distress.

What conditions can EMDR help with?

According to the Cleveland Clinic, EMDR is primarily used to treat various forms of PTSD, but it’s also helpful for treating:

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Eating disorders

• Obsessive compulsive disorders

• Dissociative disorders

• Personality disorders

5. Interpersonal therapy (IPT)

What is IPT?

According to PsychMed, Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) is a structured, short-term approach used to improve social anxiety, life transitions, and interpersonal issues. With IPT, you and your therapist will likely work together to change negative relationship patterns and communicate better with others while learning more about yourself. 

Interpersonal therapy helps you work through current relationships and social interactions and how they might affect your mental health. 

How does IPT work?

IPT acknowledges that depression can be affected by external relationships or changes to them. This can include the loss of a loved one, getting married, retiring or losing your job, or even becoming a parent for the first time. Additionally, interpersonal therapy helps you better cope with the different expectations you and the people around you have about your mutual relationships.

Your therapist may start by doing an interpersonal inventory, or list of your current and past relationships. Then they’ll work with you to sort these relationships into four categories:

• Interpersonal deficits: Relationships that are lacking in quality—sometimes, this includes having a limited number of relationships

• Interpersonal disputes: Relationships where differing expectations lead to conflict

• Grief: Relationships that have ended, such as losing a grandparent or a friend passing away

• Role transitions: Changes in relationships triggered by a transition, such as moving to a different city, coping with a health problem, or losing a job—or ending a relationship

Once relationships are sorted into these four categories, you and your therapist will identify issues causing depression or other mental health struggles and come up with constructive solutions.

Grief is personal: While grief is a normal life occurrence, prolonged feelings of loss may benefit from grief therapy.

What conditions can IPT help with?

Verywell Health notes that IPT can help with the following:

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Eating disorders

• Bipolar disorder

• Dysthymia or chronic low-grade depression

• PTSD

• Perinatal depression (during pregnancy or shortly after pregnancy)

• Postpartum depression (depression that starts within a year of pregnancy)

• Substance use problems

• Personality disorders

6. Humanistic therapy

What is humanistic therapy?

Psychology Today states that humanistic therapy is based on the idea that people are inherently good and focuses on helping them reach their full potential. By working with your feelings, thoughts, and perceptions, your therapist can help you build self-esteem, explore your emotions, find meaning in your life, and achieve your goals.

Humanistic therapy focuses on the whole person and our internal motivation to succeed. It might sound similar to the work you might do with a life coach, but keep in mind that a coach and a mental health professional focus on your mental well-being in different ways.

How does humanistic therapy work?

There are several different approaches to humanistic therapy, including the following:

• Client-centered therapy: In this approach, the therapist uses active listening to acknowledge and support the client as they share their thoughts and feelings. The aim is for the therapist to create a non-judgmental space so the client can explore their experiences as the “expert” of their own life. 

• Existential therapy: This approach focuses on helping people understand their place in the universe and how to address the challenges we confront as humans. Your therapist will help you understand the power you have to make changes to your life in order to find purpose and meaning.

• Gestalt therapy: Often using activities like role play, gestalt therapy helps you find meaning in the current events of your life. With this type of therapy, you’ll gain more awareness of your emotions and develop new perspectives to positively change your mental well-being.

• Narrative therapy: With a narrative approach, the therapist helps you focus on your personal story to help you understand that your problems don’t define you. By separating or externalizing problems, you can find a new way of looking at your life.

What conditions can humanistic therapy help with?

Humanistic therapy can help you gain a more positive mindset and may help with mental health conditions such as:

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Schizophrenia

• Personality disorders

• Substance use problems

• Panic attacks

7. Holistic therapy

What is holistic therapy?

Similar to holistic wellness, holistic therapy treats all aspects of a person’s life with a whole-person approach. A less conventional type of therapy, it mixes different approaches to address not just a person’s mental health but also their physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being.

How does holistic therapy work?

Using different approaches, the therapist works with the client to develop an individual treatment plan. This individual plan may draw from both traditional and non-traditional therapies, including Ayurveda, expressive arts like music and dance, mindfulness, and psychotherapy.

For example, holistic therapy for PTSD may combine EMDR or CBT with alternative therapies like yoga, meditation, or even take part in activities with horses as part of their therapy.

What conditions can holistic therapy help with?

Because holistic combines multiple treatment types, it can be used to treat co-occurring issues and a wide range of mental health conditions, including the following:

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Trauma

• Chronic pain

• Substance abuse problems

How to choose the right type of therapy for you

There are many more types of therapy than the ones we’ve covered here. With so much choice, finding the right approach can feel overwhelming. 

If you’re unsure of where to start with therapy, explore different mental health resources. Books, YouTube videos, and even mental health podcasts can provide insight into how others have healed from their own mental health challenges and can help you choose your personal path to healing.

You should also consider these five things when choosing which type of therapy to pursue:

1. Whether you’re comfortable with talk therapy or prefer more creative activities like role play—or a mix

2. Your goals for therapy, such as developing coping skills or resolving trauma

3. The therapy that’s available in your price range or covered by your healthcare insurance

4. The type of therapy that’s available near you or through telehealth

5. Whether you feel supported and heard by your therapist during consultation

While it’s helpful to consider your goals and what approach you’re looking for, a key aspect to success in therapy is to find a therapist you feel comfortable with and trust. As The Family Institute at Northwestern University points out, fifty years of research has shown that your relationship with your therapist has the most impact on the success of your treatment. 

How to find a therapist

You may need to consult with more than one therapist before you find someone you feel supports you and your personal goals. Even if a therapist is accredited and highly skilled, their communication style and approach to therapy may not work for you. 

You’ll likely find that many therapists use different approaches in their work. If the first therapist you meet doesn’t feel right, don’t give up. Even if therapy doesn’t feel right or comfortable with one therapist, that doesn’t mean therapy won’t work well with another.

Here are some things to consider when searching for a therapist:

• Age: You may prefer to see a therapist who is around your age and who you feel will have the life experience to understand or help you with your issues. Or rather than someone your age, you may prefer to find a therapist who is younger or older.

• Gender: Some people may feel more comfortable speaking with a man, while others may prefer a woman or a therapist who is nonbinary.

• Religion and ethnicity: If you’re religious, you may prefer to find a therapist with the same affiliation or who comes from a similar background as yourself.

• Cost: You’ll want to check whether your potential new therapist accepts your insurance, what they charge per hour, and if any other costs might be associated with your therapy, such as inpatient fees. If insurance covers your therapy sessions, check your paperwork or call your insurance company to find out what costs would come out of pocket.

• Reviews: Online therapist directories may publish reviews to give you a better idea of how a therapist operates or their personality.

Additionally, don’t forget to check whether you need a referral from your primary care physician to see a therapist. 

Knowing the difference between various types of therapists may also help you narrow down your search:

• Licensed professional counselor (LPC): To be considered an LPC, therapists must have a master’s degree in counseling, which involves coursework focused on counseling theory, psychology, and counseling techniques.

• Licensed clinical social worker (LCSW): Therapists with a master’s degree in social work are considered LCSWs. LCSWs focus on how social factors influence their patients. These can include family, other relationships, and social systems influenced by socioeconomic status, race, class, culture, and more.

• Psychologist: Psychologists have a doctorate degree and study human thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. They emphasize the impact that development, social interactions, and our environment have on our behaviors and emotions.

Note that psychologists are different from psychiatrists, who are trained in both mental health and medicine, which means they can prescribe medication.

What about online therapy?

If there is a long waitlist for an in-person appointment with a therapist or you can’t find a therapist you like in your area, text therapy, therapy apps, and phone or virtual appointments with a therapist can be an option. 

With an online therapist, you don’t necessarily have to wait until your appointment to talk.

Tips for getting the most out of therapy

Your therapy sessions are only as good as the effort you put into them. To get the most out of therapy, adopt an open mindset and follow these tips:

1. Choose a therapist you’re comfortable with: You should feel like you connect with your therapist. If you don’t, you’re free to choose a different counselor who makes you feel comfortable during sessions.

2. Don’t be afraid to share: Some people feel embarrassed or scared to share certain emotions or describe past events. If this is how you feel, it may help to let your therapist know so they can explore these feelings with you. Sharing your thoughts and emotions with your therapist helps them understand you better and be more effective in your sessions.

3. Be open to change: Your therapist may advise you to try new things or ask you to consider new ways to think about your situation or experiences. Remaining open to these new skills and approaches can help you get more out of therapy.

4. Try not to skip sessions: Your progress in therapy depends on how well you follow your treatment plan. This includes attending sessions with your therapist. Skipping sessions may indicate you need a different approach to therapy, a new therapist, or that you need to talk with your therapist about what’s holding you back.

5. Take therapy homework seriously: Your therapist may ask you to complete exercises in between sessions, such as repeating “I” statements to yourself each morning or journaling. While you may not like the idea of homework, these exercises can help your healing continue between appointments or provide new insights for your next session.

Expecting instant results? While we all wish therapy worked instantly, healing takes time. In the same way that a cut or broken leg doesn’t heal overnight, most people require multiple therapy sessions before seeing progress. Most therapy patients begin to self-report improvements after an average of 15 to 20 sessions, while those who are working on multiple mental health conditions in therapy may require longer treatment.

Therapy vs. coaching

Though coaching and therapy are similar, coaching is more focused on personal or career growth, while psychotherapy is more focused on treating mental health issues. Coaches work with you to build “mental fitness,” which is the resilience to bounce back from adversity and work toward personal growth.

People who work closely with a BetterUp life coach have been shown to have greater emotional well-being, including up to a 67% improvement in stress management and up to a 46% boost in emotional thriving. But while coaching can help you improve your overall wellness, it isn’t a replacement for mental health therapy.

Different types of therapy for building different types of mental strength

We’re each unique, and so are our mental health journeys. That’s why there’s no one single type of therapy available—each one offers a variety of benefits. Choosing the best one comes down to your needs and preferences—and the best approach to therapy may change at different times in our lives.

Much like a good coach, a good therapist can help you unlock your inner strength. Seeking help from both can lead to a better, stronger you. Find out how BetterUp coaches can help you build confidence, overcome uncertainty, and improve your overall well-being.