What is the difference between counselling and psychotherapy?

There are different views on this. I’ll cover some main differences in views, and explain my view, along with how I use the term counselling when describing the services offered by Basis Therapy.

One view is that they are different terms for the same thing, and that there should be no differentiation.

Another position is that they are different.

• Counselling focuses on the here and now - on getting into a better place in managing some aspect of life that is a problem.

• Psychotherapy focuses on exploring, understanding, and processing what has shaped us, and how this has led to certain ways of being for us. In turn this enables us to develop options for new ways of being.

Typically counselling is short-term and psychotherapy is considered longer-term.

The third position, which is the one I err towards, is that both are essentially correct*.

• It is useful to consider counselling as short(er) term therapy (up to c.20 sessions) that focuses on an increased capacity to manage life problems, but it is important to understand that issues don't arise in isolation. A life problem might be an issue in the here and now, but it will still have its origin in what has shaped us in the past. We can effect change by understanding and processing its origin and how it has limited us in some way, which paves the way for developing and choosing options in how we want to be, and how we respond to life problems, that better work for us. Counselling can be* short-hand for a shorter-term version of long-term psychotherapy that, whilst more focused than long-term therapy, can still be very effective. I don't tend to use the term 'counselling' day to day, and tend to think of it as shorter-term therapy or shorter-term psychotherapy.

• Psychotherapy, though it can be a full, long-term exploration of how the past has influenced us, still has specific goals. It can use the same tools to work on specific issues we are experiencing now, just as with counselling/shorter-term therapy, to help us understand what is limiting us. Longer-term therapy gives us the space and time to understand and process the inter-connections between all of the different aspects of our lives and those of our care givers, for a richer understanding of what has shaped us and how this has led to certain ways of being for us. It gives us more time to process what we learn about ourselves, and to create (and practice) options for how we want to be - within ourselves and with others.

*It is worth noting that this is my view based on transactional analysis (TA) as the modality/type of therapy. It may not apply universally to all types of therapy.

**and other modalities of psychotherapy.