Therapy Toronto Psychotherapy Definitions

Parenting

Parenting may be the most demanding and important form of relationship. Our tendency to replay our own childhood parental relationships deeply affects our capacity as parents.

Persona

Carl Jung coined this term to describe the outer personality that we adopt without realizing it as a social vehicle to get by in the world.

PhD

PhD stands for Doctor of Philosophy, a university post-graduate degree granted in many specialty areas.

Phone Therapy

The telephone is a very effective means of communication for many people who relate especially strongly to the voice, have demanding schedules, or are distant from the therapist’s physical office.

Post Traumatic Stress

This describes a person’s response to experiencing one or more traumatic events as a witness or victim.

Pre-Marital

Pre-marital therapy helps couples to assess and improve areas of their relationship that are important for a long and loving marriage.

Such therapy is often begun to ensure that a marriage starts and continues smoothly.

Projection

In psychoanalytic writing the term projection refers to what people had known for centuries but did not notice in their own behaviour.

Psyche

Originally the name given to a Greek god in mythology, the word usually refers to the mind, especially to the unconscious mind postulated by Freud.

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis is a theoretical approach to psychotherapy pioneered by Freud and continued by his many successors.

Psychodrama

A technique in which a person's psychic drama is re-enacted in order to resolve it.

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Psychodynamic psychotherapy is not prescriptive and values the unique subjectivity of each individual's psychic life.

This is the oldest and best-established mode of working in psychotherapy. Its focus is on enabling the client to make independent decisions so these therapists do not offer advice or solutions.

Instead, they help clients make their own best choices at their own rate.

Psychological Type

Psychological type, a Jungian concept, can be a very useful means of understanding how we relate to others and how others relate to us.

Psychosomatic Wellness/Disease

'Psycho-somatic' refers to the intricate connection between the soma (body) and the psyche traditionally in Western culture the twin constituents of the self.

Psychospiritual

The psychospiritual approach integrates both psychological growth and spiritual attunement, viewing the complications of life not as problems to be solved but as a gateway to greater understanding. Crisis becomes the opportunity for growth and development as well as spiritual emergence.

Psychotherapy

Term for a wide range of therapeutic activities within a dyadic process of private and confidential dialogue on issues relevant to a person seeking help - the client - and intended to help a client resolve life issues with the assistance of a person trained in this specific form of professional work, the therapist.