Psychotherapy is the usage of psychological interventions to improve a person’s mental health and individual well-being. The process is usually collaborative – the individual works with the psychologist to achieve specific goals by changing his/her thought patterns, behaviours, as well as attitudes and beliefs. These goals can include overcoming specific issues such as insomnia, managing conflict, improving relationships, and bettering one’s social skills.

There isn’t an exhaustive list of issues that you can work on with a psychologist, and we have helped our clients with a wide range of problems at Asia Psychology Centre. These can include but are not limited to, managing conflict with loved ones, workplace stress, poor sleep quality, substance abuse, and mood regulation matters. For a look at some of the most commonly addressed issues, you can check our range of services here.

There is a common misconception that people seek psychotherapy only when they have a clinical disorder that needs to be managed. In reality, therapy serves much more than just this group of people. Many others see psychologists for various reasons. Some of our clients are functioning fairly well in most aspects of their lives, but cope poorly in a few areas. We thus work with them to iron out the problems that they are facing. Others come to us to get clarity and perspective on specific issues – whether at work or in their personal lives – and to see if things can be improved or optimised further.

Therapy’s effectiveness is highly dependent on the client’s willingness to make changes to his/her life, in areas like general attitude, thought processes, and patterns of behaviour. If a person doesn’t see the need to change anything, and is not open to accepting other perspectives, then psychotherapy’s effectiveness will be limited, even if this person attends sessions.

Essentially, therapy frameworks provide a structure for case formulation – the psychologist uses it to define the problem and develop the necessary intervention together with the client. At Asia Psychology Centre, our clinicians use various therapy frameworks – often in combination – depending on the client’s needs. They include Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), Solution–Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT), and Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT). This is not an exhaustive list of the therapy frameworks used, but they are the most commonly applied ones.

Clients often come to us with specific problems to solve or issues to iron out. These end goals, however, are not necessarily achievable immediately, and may require other short- and mid-term objectives to be met first. During sessions, our psychologists will work with you to define the scope of issues to work on at that point in time, and to discuss progress markers that indicate that specific milestones or goals are being met.

The number of sessions that a client requires depends on the complexity of the issue. On one end of the spectrum, we have worked with clients with very specific issues and expectations, and have seen progress with them within a couple of sessions. One client, for example, wanted to work on better communication strategies with his mother-in-law, and was able to see some positive changes in their relationship dynamic by the third session. On the other hand, clients may sometimes have deep-rooted issues that require several sessions to unpack, before we even begin to work together on management strategies. A couple seeking help for conflict management, for instance, may uncover with the psychologist that years of grievances and unmet needs have led to a dysfunctional and rigid communication dynamic. This will take time to improve, since it entails uncovering and resolving the couple’s pain points with each other during therapy. For such a case, several months’ worth of work over multiple therapy sessions may be needed. It is important to note that therapy effectiveness is not just dependent on the psychologist’s aptitude and ability to connect with clients – clients themselves need to be motivated to apply what has been discussed in therapy and make the necessary changes to his/her situation. Only then will clients be able to see an improvement in the issues faced.

We recommend weekly sessions for new clients, as there will be more things to work through with a psychologist initially. As progress is made, sessions can progressively decrease in frequency from weekly to fortnightly, monthly, etc. Our goal is to wean every client off psychotherapy by helping them to make progress and see improvements in the areas of their lives that they are having issues with. Eventually, a check-in every three, six, or even 12 months will be all that is needed. Some clients also opt to stop sessions entirely once they feel confident enough about overcoming their problems.