Psychiatric Consultations and Examinations
Psychotherapy
Supervision
Psychiatric Consultations and Examinations
Are you experiencing a life crisis, relationship problems, study difficulties or problems at work? Are you suffering from depression or other common psychological problems, such as anxiety, sleep difficulties or general discomfort?
A psychiatric consultation or examination will help you better understand your life situation and the accompanying problems you may be facing. Working together, we will devise a treatment plan that is tailored to your individual needs.
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy involves discussions with a therapist in an atmosphere of confidentiality and cooperation. The purpose of therapy is to increase self-awareness and integrate the personality. The process entails working through earlier life experiences and inner conflicts and understanding their relation to present-day difficulties. When you gain insight to your problems, your current symptoms may ease or completely disappear, and you will be better able to employ the resources of your personality.Through this experience of facing and analyzing problems in confidential cooperation with a therapist, you can learn to understand your unique life experience. You will see that difficulties are also part of life, and you will no longer fear challenges.
What is psychoanalytic or psychodynamic therapy?
Therapy based on psychoanalytic theory examines and treats psychological symptoms and suffering. The purpose of the therapeutic relationship is to gain understanding of the inner world of an individual mind as it relates to unconscious matters and their background and history.
Psychoanalytic therapy aims to increase the ability to recognize, understand and work through feelings, inner conflicts and problems in a way that facilitates inner growth and change. Psychoanalytic treatment is intensive and long-term by nature: therapy usually includes two or three weekly sessions and may last several years. Psychoanalytic work is based on an interaction in which the client’s personal psychological work has an essential role.
How to seek psychoanalytic therapy?
Psychoanalytic therapy is best suited to and most beneficial for people who are interested in inner realities and willing to examine their inner world to overcome difficulties. They may suffer from a variety of symptoms, such as anxiety, depression, compulsive behaviour or distorted self-esteem. Their problems are often reflected as difficulties in relationships, problems at work or loneliness.
The cost of psychotherapy?
The cost of psychotherapy is 50 to 80 euros (in Latvia 20-40 lvl) per session, which typically lasts 45 minutes. Before beginning treatment, the therapist conducts a few interviews to evaluate the client’s need for therapy. These interviews, which are subject to a fee, also offer both parties an opportunity to examine the basis for possible cooperation. Prior to the first actual therapy session, the therapist and client conclude an oral or written treatment agreement.
Supervision
Supervision is a professional growth and development tool for those in the caring professions. The counselling process focuses on work itself and on the client as an employee and member of the community at the workplace. Supervision promotes professional growth, cooperation and more clearly defined work roles, and also aims to create a common understanding of the purpose and goals of work. A special kind of supervision is the guidance offered to psychotherapists when encountering individual patient with his problems. Here the experience of an older colleague is used to promote understanding between the therapist and client and clarifying underlying conflicts that might endanger the therapeutic process.
The difference between supervision and therapy
Supervision is an intermediate form of training and therapy. Therapy deals with the individual’s inner processes and the connected deeper feelings, examining problems in their private life. Supervision concentrates on work itself and interaction in the workplace. Even though this counselling may have a therapeutic effect, it has a different focus than therapy.
Supervision is often confused with work guidance. These two, however, are entirely different: work guidance initiates the employee into a specific profession or task, whereas work counselling serves as an overall tool for professional growth and development.
Supervision in practice
The interaction between the counsellor and client is integral to individual work counselling, which is based on the client’s work-related experiences. Group supervision involves discussions between the counsellor and the participants; the groups are always small enough for each participant to have eye contact and create a conversational contact with everyone else. This supports interaction within the group and also creates an atmosphere that encourages the participants to raise, in their own way, any issues bothering them.
Source: Työnohjaus palvelualoilla (”Work Counseling in the Service Professions”), Juha Hämäläinen, The Center for Occupational Safety