By Carol Goh
Want to explore if psychotherapy fits your situation?WhatsApp us for a quicker response, contact us, or book an appointment.
Psychotherapy helps people understand emotions and behaviours, work through the root causes of distress, and build healthier patterns—useful for individuals, couples, and families. At Emotional Wellness Counselling Singapore, we combine evidence-based approaches and a warm, non-judgmental setting to support concerns like depression, anxiety, panic, stress, trauma, and relationship issues.
What is psychotherapy?
Psychotherapy uses psychological methods to treat emotional distress and behavioural difficulties. Rather than advice-giving, it’s a collaborative process that increases insight, shifts unhelpful beliefs, and strengthens coping—so confidence and resilience grow over time.
How sessions work
We tailor the work to your needs and pace:
- Safety & goals — understand your history, current stressors, and hopes.
- Formulation — map patterns (thoughts, emotions, body responses, behaviours).
- Approaches — select modalities (see below) that fit your themes.
- Skills — practise regulation, communication, and habit systems.
- Integration — in-session processing + between-session experiments.
Related reads: Seeking Help for Depression, Stress Counselling, Anger Management, Youth Counselling, Marriage Counselling.
Core psychotherapy approaches we use
1) Psychoanalysis & psychodynamic therapy
Explores the unconscious roots of current struggles—how early experiences shape present patterns—so you can resolve unresolved conflicts and live with more flexibility and choice.
2) Behaviour therapy
Targets specific behaviours with tools like exposure, reinforcement, and habit design—useful when avoidance or stuck routines keep problems going.
3) Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)
Identifies and updates unhelpful thinking patterns that drive difficult emotions/behaviours. You’ll learn practical strategies and run “behavioural experiments” to test new beliefs.
4) Humanistic & Gestalt therapy
Provides a non-judgmental, empathic space to deepen self-acceptance and meaning. Gestalt’s Empty Chair technique helps resolve “unfinished business” by dialoguing with the internalised other.
5) Integrative or holistic therapy
We blend modalities to match your themes—especially for trauma and inner-child work—so processing goes beyond talk and into felt, lasting change.
See also: EMDR, Schema Therapy, and our integrative framework The RENEW Program.
Evidence-based techniques frequently used here
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Well-supported for PTSD and trauma-related symptoms. Involves history-taking, preparation, an 8-phase protocol, and bilateral stimulation to help the brain reconsolidate distressing memories.
Learn more: EMDR.
Schema Therapy
Targets long-standing maladaptive schemas (e.g., “I’m not good enough”) that began in childhood. Combines cognitive, behavioural, experiential, and limited reparenting methods to build healthy adult modes.
Deep dive: Schema Therapy.
Gestalt (Empty Chair)
Facilitates resolution by voicing and processing unspoken feelings. Swapping chairs helps you understand both perspectives and arrive at workable closure.
Overview: Psychotherapy techniques.
Psychotherapy vs counselling
- Counselling: usually shorter-term, present-focused guidance and coping around a defined issue.
- Psychotherapy: in-depth exploration of attitudes, beliefs, and patterns—including childhood roots—to resolve causes and enable growth.
If your themes involve grief, childhood trauma, complex anxiety/depression, or recurrent relationship cycles, psychotherapy often brings deeper, more durable change.
Make an appointment
If you’d like a safe, steady space to work through what’s hard—and to build the skills and foundations for what’s next:
WhatsApp us for a quicker response, Contact us or book an appointment
The information in this article is for educational purposes and isn’t a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
