All therapies for psychological disorders have a common goal:
to reduce or remove the client’s symptoms and improve the client’s ability to function effectively in everyday life.
Psychotherapy is the treatment of emotional, behavioral, and interpersonal problems through the use of techniques designed to help clients understand
their problems and modify troubling feelings, behaviors, or relationships.
The various types of psychotherapy (such as psychoanalysis, behavioral therapy, and cognitive therapy)
derive from psychology’s major perspectives on personality and psychological disorders.
Biomedical therapies are based on a different perspective that views psychological disorders
as illnesses that should be treated with medical procedures and therapies.
These therapies use psychoactive medications or other biologically-based techniques such as electroconvulsive therapy.
The goal of biomedical therapies is to physically change the brain’s functioning, usually by altering brain chemistry.