"And how do you feeeel about that?"

When we think of therapy, what usually comes to mind is a patient laying on a couch while the therapist takes notes on how they respond to questions.

What I learned from Chapter 16: Psychological & Biological Treatments is that there are many more types of treatment than this broad generalization.

The section first dives into describing those who seek psychotherapy and those that offer it. What I found interesting is that there are few or no differences in effectiveness between therapists who have extensive training versus helpers with no formal professional training. The term "therapist" isn't legally protected, so pretty much anyone can hang up a sign and offer treatment.

Therapies are referred to as either psychological (e.g. group therapy, family therapy, etc.) or biological (e.g. medication, surgery, etc.) In psychological therapy, some prominent approaches are psychoanalysis which tends to be lengthy (years or even decades) and psychodynamic therapy which is typically less costly and briefer (weeks or months).
The two treatments that are most shocking to me are both biological: electric stimulation and surgery (which are now used the least).

Electrical stimulation, or "shock therapy," delivers small electric shocks to people's brains to lift their mood. My aunt actually went through shock therapy for bipolar disorder, but now this is rarely performed due to the controversy of psychosurgery in general. Psychosurgery in the past was used on violent criminals, abusers and aggressive prison inmates. It involved the frontal lobes or other brain regions, which were damaged or removed in an effort to control serious psychological disorders.

Although we have this preconceived notion of what psychotherapy is, it can be defined as a psychological intervention designed to help people resolve emotional, behavioral, and interpersonal problems and improve the quality of their lives (Engler & Goleman, 1992, p. 15). There isn't a specific "right way" of healing, but instead there is a broad spectrum of therapies designed to alleviate emotional suffering.