Therapy Toronto Psychotherapy Definitions

Sandplay

Sandplay is a therapeutic modality that employs simple tools to enable people (particularly the young) to express themselves from the deeper levels of the psyche.

Schema

The word schema is used to describe a mental process for efficiently processing and organizing incoming information.

Schema-Focused Cognitive Therapy

Schema-Focused Cognitive Therapy is an integrative approach to treatment that combines the best aspects of cognitive-behavioral, experiential, interpersonal and psychoanalytic therapies into one unified model.

Self

The concept of the self is relatively new within psychotherapy. It is largely due to the writing of Carl Jung who sought a word other than ‘soul’ to describe the whole nature of an individual beyond the tripartite structure of Ego, Superego and Id proposed by Freud.

Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is the opinion you have of yourself.

Adequate self-esteem based on a clear personal appreciation of your character, talents, values and desires is essential to a satisfactory life.

Self-Harm

Self-Harm decribes actions causing some bodily damage that are inflicted by a person on him or herself to relieve distress.

Self-Psychology

Self-Psychology arose from the work of Heinz Kohut, for many years a traditional psychoanalyst.

Sensorimotor

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (SP) is a mindfulness-based method that is done in a highly collaborative manner and includes liberal amounts of psycho-education as well as somatic education.

Session

Common term for the therapeutic meetings of a client and a therapist. Typically, sessions last from 50 to 60 minutes.

Sexual Abuse

Sexual abuse, particularly when we are young, has lasting negative effects on our lives. It affects our capacity to trust, to distinguish between love and sexual activity, and to make our own choices in how we live.

Shame

In psychotherapy, shame refers not to the simple reactions we all endure for having done said or thought something we ourselves as merely foolish or uncaring.

Rather, it refers to the deep scarring of our personality that arises from our having been unfairly treated by others who have power over our emotions and use it unfairly.

Shiatsu

Shiatsu is a form of bodywork with roots in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and literally translates to mean “finger pressure”.

Short-Term Therapy

Short-term therapy usually refers to therapies lasting less than 40 hours, and especially those lasting fewer than 12 hours.

This covers all forms of therapy that are concluded within a single year, based on a weekly session or meeting.

Silence

Silence is an important aspect of therapeutic communication.

Sleep Disorders

Sleep disorders are a group of conditions characterized by difficulties related to sleeping.

These include difficulty falling or staying asleep, falling asleep at inappropriate times, restlessness, excessive total sleep time, or abnormal behaviors associated with sleep such as nightmares and sleepwalking.

Social Isolation

The modern urban society provides few valid ways for many to connect with others who recognize and respect them as persons.

Soma

In the ancient holy language of Sanskrit soma refers to the body. It is the source of physical sensation, sometimes confusingly called ‘feeling’. Emotions within the body may be expressed without words as sensations.

Somatic

This refers to the body’s means of expressing itself through physical states. See psychosomatic for more information.

Sorge

Heidegger's preferred word for what he thought was the essence of being human in the best sense.

Soul

Sigmund Freud, already a neurologist and physician, described himself as a ‘Seeleartzt’ or ‘soul doctor’ when he embarked on the development of psychoanalysis. He believed in the primacy of individual existence.

Spiritual Issues/Direction

Many definitions of this work exist. We offer some of them here.

Spiritual Self Schema Therapy

Spiritual Self Schema Therapy (3-S) is a convergence of Buddhist principles and practices and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

Spiritually-Oriented

Spiritually-oriented Psychotherapy
acknowledges the metaphysical/spiritual level of the human experience, including quantum concepts and phenomena such as healing energy, intentionality and consciousness.

Sports Psychotherapy

Sports are complex hybrids of physical and psychic interactions. Sports psychotherapy improves performance.

Stress

Stress is usually defined as excess physical, emotional or psychic strain.

This allows us to include a wide range of subjective experiences within it. Clearly, the factors creating stress vary greatly for each of us.

Is stress a symptom, a pointer to an underlying issue, or a physical condition that creates emotional reactions in us?

Subconscious

This term is often used to refer to the Unconscious but is not identical to it.

Subjectivity

A fairly recent concept in psychodynamic psychotherapy is the notion of subjectivity and its related term, inter-subjectivity. Within the North American schools these concepts signal a distinct departure from traditional and classical views of the defenses (qv) first described by Freud.

Substance Abuse

This term is generally used to refer to the inappropriate over-use of alcohol. drugs (both prescription and illegal) and food.

Suicide Survivors

When someone we are attached to commits or attempts to commit suicide, those left behind are sometimes referred to as suicide survivors or completed suicide survivors.

Superego

The superego is that which is above the ego and commands the ego to act in only specific ways. Superego can be both positive and negative.

Sympathy

This literally means having a common feeling. It is an important component of the connection between human beings.