My approach

A psychologist is a professional who has undergone both university training and personal training, in the form of psychotherapy.

The patient is supported in the questioning they have decided to undertake about themselves. A psychologist is not a doctor and cannot therefore prescribe medication. Their work is above all one of listening and assisting.

Supportive therapy

Supportive therapy is based on listening to and accompanying the patient. Its aim is to help the person tolerate their symptoms or general problems, and to provide moral support.

Putting feelings and difficulties into words is central here: it allows patients to relieve their burden. The frequency of the sessions is decided together with the patient.

Cognitive and behavioural therapies

CBT is a group of scientifically validated methods which involve cognitive, behavioural and emotional work. They differ from other therapies in the collaborative relationship which bonds the patient to the therapist, and they are based on correcting negative thoughts, or cognitions, and on learning new, appropriate behaviours.

• It is a concrete approach which, through objectives and strategies suited to the patient, allows their progress to be assessed regularly.
• It is an active method, in which the patient invests through carrying out exercises.
• It is an interactive method, in which the patient becomes an expert in their own condition through therapeutic education.

Our behaviours interact with emotions and cognitions. CBT works on these three components.

Emotions

It is not the situation which creates the emotion, but the interpretation we make of it. CBT helps with the awareness and the identification of emotions, in order to make them one’s own.

Behaviours

Dysfunctional or inappropriate behaviours have been learned in certain contexts, then maintained by the environment and by negative emotions, psychological distress such as anxiety, aggression and depression.

Cognitions

Cognitions are the automatic thoughts which make up the internal dialogue. They are often rigid and give rise to emotions and behaviours. They hinder our relationships and alter the direction of our life, our self-esteem, our adaptation and our progress.

Socratic questioning, gradual exposure to anxiety-producing stimuli, also called systematic desensitisation, and reinforcement are among the main techniques. There are however a great many other solutions in CBT, all of them based on two fundamental principles, always in cooperation with the person consulting:

1. 1changing one or more behaviours, using environmental factors, which are external, and cognitive factors, thoughts, beliefs and ideas;
2. 2systematically assessing the effects of each intervention.

Relaxation

The significant advantage of relaxation is undoubtedly that it is simple and self-generated. The patient learns a method which they can keep for life. It helps to manage stress and pain, for a more comfortable life.

Schultz autogenic training

It is based on the suggestion of the symptoms which define the state of relaxation: a feeling of weightlessness, the sensation of pleasant warmth, free and harmonious breathing. It is a gentle form of self-hypnosis, which allows the force of the representations of our mind to be applied to the body: this is called concentrative self-relaxation. Autogenic training is an effective method to increase performance, promote recovery or simply make life more bearable.

The Jacobson technique

It involves contracting and then relaxing all the muscles in succession, while paying attention to the muscular sensations. It ends with the evocation of a pleasant place, and the process lasts half an hour. In its theoretical principles, the Jacobson approach rejects any idea of suggestion, hypnosis or psychoanalytic theory, and works purely on a physiological level.