Therapy

There are five types of therapy

Psychodynamic

Freud / Jung / Adler, Europe, in the early 1900s, “you are a function of your unconscious,” example is Psychoanalysis

Behavioral

Pavlov / Watson / Skinner, America in the 1950s, “you are a function of your stimuli / environment,” example is systematic desensitization

Cognitive

Beck / Ellis, America in the 1960s, “you are a function of your thoughts,” example is CBT (cognitive behavior therapy)

Humanistic

Maslow / Rogers, America in the 1960s, “you are a function of who you want to be,” examples are EFT (emotionally focused therapy)

Holistic

Catch all for everything else, “you are a function of everything,” examples are EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing)

Like every industry (and religion) there are strong proponents of each of the Big Five systems here. It is REALLY hard to tell what system is real, or good, or even if the practitioner know what they’re doing.

Some types of therapy, like CBT, are well suited to treat symptoms because they are heavily focused on tactics. On other hand, some types of therapy are focused on treating the root cause, like IFS. Then there are systems like Dialectical Behavior Therapy, which sample a little bit of everything (cognitive, buddhism, mindfulness).