As somebody seeking help for an emotional or psychological problem, you may very well be confused by the myriad of terms used to describe the kinds of help available. You may hear about counselling, therapy, psychotherapy, psychology or even mentoring and coaching. I hope that this article will provide some clarity on two of these terms - psychotherapy and counselling - and what differences, as a client, you might expect to experience in terms of how your difficulty is understood and what are seen as the goals of the therapy.

Definitions of psychotherapy and counselling

To start with, some definitions may help to understand the nature of both psychotherapy and counselling, and also to see some of the similarities and differences between them.

What is counselling?

Counselling is the skilled and principled use of relationship to facilitate self-knowledge, emotional acceptance and growth and the optimal development of personal resources. The overall aim is to provide an opportunity to work towards living more satisfyingly and resourcefully. Counselling relationships will vary according to need but may be concerned with developmental issues, addressing and resolving specific problems, making decisions, coping with crisis, developing personal insights and knowledge, working through feelings of inner conflict or improving relationships with others

And what is psychotherapy?

Psychotherapy is the comprehensive and intentional engagement between therapist and client for the healing, growth or transformation of emotional, physical, relationship, existential and behavioural issues, or of chronic suffering, through well-founded relational processes. The aim of psychotherapy is to support increased awareness and choices, and facilitate the development, maturation, efficacy and well-being of a client. Psychotherapy involves what is known and what may not be known in personal functioning, usually referred to as 'conscious or unconscious factors'. Through a holistic perspective it encompasses the mental, emotional, behavioural, relational, existential and spiritual health of a human being. A psychotherapist engaged with a person to explore social factors that shape their understanding of who they are in relation to others and how they create meaning. Aspects of problems solving are integrated into an affective approach that involves deep structural adjustment of the psyche and encompasses the context of the whole person

Differences between psychotherapy and counselling

It should be borne in mind that the above definitions of psychotherapy and counselling are just two ways of describing what are often understood as complex processes and activities. They are difficult to define. However, these particular definitions do help extract some important features of these two forms of talking therapy:

• In counselling, the focus is to help you make use of personal resources and to use those resources so as to function more effectively in life. Primarily the work is to help use what is already known about the self and to solve problems.
• In psychotherapy, a key element is often a process of transformation and of self-understanding based both on what is known and what is not known - so here there might be a focus on conscious awareness and also unconscious factors.