Directory of psychotherapies

A form of psychotherapy born from the merging of behavioral and cognitive therapies, CBT modifies dysfunctional thought patterns and problematic behaviors. Present-oriented an…

Developed by Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg, this brief approach focuses on solutions rather than problems. It starts from the premise that the client already possesses th…

Born at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, it holds that psychological problems are not isolated but the product of a family or social system. It focuses on the inter…

Formalized by Leslie Greenberg and Robert Elliott, BET places emotions at the heart of therapeutic work, considering that they influence thoughts and behaviors. Brief and targ…

Developed by Steven Hayes, ACT uses acceptance and mindfulness to help overcome psychological distress. Rather than struggling against their thoughts and feelings, the person…

Arising from the work of Milton Erickson and the MRI in Palo Alto, it focuses on the search for solutions rather than on the analysis of problems, helping the patient to shift…

A structured approach to group therapy, conducted over a limited number of sessions with clear objectives, it posits that targeted interventions within a group setting produce…

Developed by Marsha Linehan for borderline personality disorder, DBT balances acceptance and change. Grounded in dialectics and validation, it teaches skills of emotional regu…

Developed by Thomas D'Zurilla and Arthur Nezu, problem-solving therapy helps in managing the stressful challenges of everyday life. Oriented toward the present and the future,…

Conceived in the 2000s for crisis intervention, Immediate Involvement Therapy relies on an active, authentic, and engaged presence of the therapist, centered on the here and n…

Developed by Michael White and David Epston, it focuses on the stories people tell about their lives, considering that these shape identity. Through externalizing the problem…

Arising from behavioral therapy (Lewinsohn, Jacobson), it engages the patient in adaptive activities, consistent with their values, to counter inertia and behavioral avoidance…

Developed by de Shazer and Berg, this brief therapy focuses on concrete solutions rather than on the past causes of problems. It draws on techniques such as the miracle questi…

Emerging in reaction to psychoanalytic and behaviorist approaches (Rogers, Maslow, Perls), it places the individual, considered unique, at the heart of therapy and respects th…

Created by Francine Shapiro in 1987, EMDR uses alternating bilateral stimulation, often eye movements, to reprocess traumatic memories. Client-centered, it was first designed…

Arising from social psychology (Lewin, Deutsch) and mediation, it aims to manage and resolve interpersonal and social conflicts. It begins by clearly identifying the conflict…

Born in the 1970s from the merging of behavioral and cognitive therapies, IBT combines several techniques (CBT, DBT, ACT) to treat a wide range of disorders. Flexible and adap…

Developed by Joseph Wolpe in the 1950s, it rests on the principle of reciprocal inhibition: a state of deep relaxation, incompatible with anxiety, is repeatedly paired with hi…

A form of behavioral therapy developed in the 1970s to treat depression, it starts from the observation that depressed individuals adopt behaviors that keep them in that state…

A brief approach centered on emotional support and regulation, BEST aims for short-term affective stabilization through a strong therapeutic alliance and the validation of emo…

Conceptualized as early as the 1940s and developed in the 1960s, it provides an immediate response to situations of psychological crisis. It aims to stabilize the individual a…

Developed by Edna Foa, this cognitive behavioral therapy treats post-traumatic stress through controlled, repeated, and prolonged confrontation with traumatic memories and avo…

Born in the 1970s in response to the cognitive deficits of psychiatric disorders, notably schizophrenia, CRT aims to strengthen impaired cognitive functions through training:…

Developed by William Miller and Stephen Rollnick, motivational enhancement therapy helps the person find within themselves the motivation to change. Grounded in empathy, the d…

A structured and multidimensional approach, stress management therapy aims to reduce the psychophysiological impact of chronic or acute stress by integrating cognitive, behavi…

Developed by Paul Gilbert, compassion-focused therapy treats pathological shame, severe self-criticism, and self-disgust. Rather than restructuring cognitive content, it aims…

Arising from positive psychology (Seligman, Csikszentmihalyi), it focuses on the person's strengths and internal resources rather than on their symptoms. By empowering the ind…

Created by Albert Ellis from 1955 onward, REBT rests on the ABC model: it is not events but the irrational, rigid and musturbatory beliefs we form about them that cause distre…

A synthesis of three currents (Beck's cognitive distancing, mindfulness, ACT defusion), Cognitive Self-Distancing Therapy establishes stepping back from one's thoughts as a th…

Founded on the observation that a lack of insight — the unawareness of one's illness and of the need for treatment — hinders recovery, Brief Insight Therapy aims to restore th…

Formalized in 2018 by the Institut Repère, this brief therapy treats disorders of self-image and body esteem. An heir to the strategic brief therapies of Palo Alto, it targets…

A synthesis of a philosophical and clinical tradition (phenomenology, existentialism, Yalom, Frankl), it places existential concerns at the center: meaning, finitude, freedom,…

An operational synthesis of the 2010-2020 turn, Brief Adaptive Identity Therapy aims, in a few sessions, to transform an identity frozen by traumas or transitions into a fluid…

Developed by Bruce Ecker and Laurel Hulley, Coherence Therapy draws on memory reconsolidation: a reactivated memory trace becomes labile and modifiable again. It brings to lig…

A convergence of several currents (Palo Alto brief therapies, motivational interviewing, the transtheoretical model, relapse prevention), Brief Therapy for Addictions and Impu…

A neologism owned by LogiMind, Brief Narrative Regulation Therapy synthesizes the narrative currents (Michael White, Pennebaker's expressive writing). Through externalization,…

A recent synthesis combining NLP, Ericksonian hypnosis and semantic priming, Brief Semantic Anchoring Therapy works on the lexical and symbolic dimension of change. It associa…

Created by Milton Erickson as early as the 1930s, Ericksonian hypnosis rests on utilization (everything the patient brings becomes a resource), trust in the unconscious and in…

Born in 2002 (Segal, Williams, Teasdale), mindfulness-based cognitive therapy combines meditation and cognitive therapy. It distinguishes the doing mode from the being mode an…

An integrative approach formalized in the 2010s, hybridizing autogenic training, sophrology and MBSR, self-hypnosis-based stress reduction views stress as a psychophysiologica…

Founded in 1956 by Alexander Lowen and John Pierrakos in the lineage of Wilhelm Reich, bioenergetic analysis rests on the psychosomatic unity and on the character armor: psych…

Founded in 1960 in Madrid by Alfonso Caycedo, sophrology is a discipline for the study of harmonious consciousness, at the crossroads of relaxation and phenomenology. Based on…

Developed by the neuropsychiatrist Johannes Heinrich Schultz (published in 1932), autogenic training is a psychophysiological relaxation method based on the autogenic shift: t…

Developed by Edmund Jacobson as early as the 1920s, progressive relaxation uses the muscular proprioceptive loop as a gateway to the emotional state. Through the successive co…

Created by the Lausanne physician Roger Vittoz at the beginning of the 20th century to treat neurasthenia, the method rests on three functions: receptivity (welcoming sensatio…

Stemming from the work of the HeartMath Institute (founded in 1991), cardiac coherence is a technique of autonomic regulation centered on heart rate variability. Through rhyth…

Eutony is not, strictly speaking, a psychotherapy but a somatic education acting on tonus, the baseline state of muscular tension. Its cardinal principle is the right tonus: n…

A pedagogical system of somatic learning conceived by Moshé Feldenkrais, it posits that the nervous system retains throughout life a capacity to reorganize motor patterns thro…

A re-education of the use of the self rather than a therapy in the strict sense, the Alexander Technique rests on primary control: the dynamic relationship between the head, t…

A Chinese psycho-corporeal practice with millennia-old roots, Qi Gong rests on the circulation of Qi, the vital energy, through movement, breathing and attention. Belonging ab…

A psycho-corporeal discipline stemming from the Indian tradition, articulated on the eight limbs codified by Patanjali, therapeutic yoga combines postures, breathing and atten…

Developed by Milton Erickson, Ericksonian hypnosis differs from classical hypnosis through the principle of utilization: every element of the situation, including resistance,…

An indirect heir of Erickson, conversational hypnosis unfolds without formal induction, within the flow of an ordinary interaction whose linguistic structure calls upon the pa…

Codified by Olivier Lockert and Patricia d'Angeli (IFHE), Humanistic Hypnosis belongs to the suggestive and imaginal family. Unlike classical hypnosis, it posits an augmented,…

Linked to Émile Coué and the Nancy School, self-hypnosis rests on the self-induction of a modified state of consciousness and on suggestion by oneself, the subject constructin…

Applied to anesthesia and pain, medical hypnosis induces a modified state of consciousness (focusing, dissociation, suggestibility), mobilized notably in hypnosedation, combin…

A psycho-corporeal therapy with imaginative mediation, guided imagery rests on the active, intentional and multisensory production of inner images, supported by a voice. First…

Conceived by Robert Monroe at the Monroe Institute, Hemi-Sync rests on binaural beats: two sounds of slightly different frequencies, presented to each ear, generate the percep…

A program created by Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1979, mindfulness-based stress reduction structures the practice around seven attitudes (non-judging, patience, acceptance, letting go..…

Spread by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Transcendental Meditation rests on the mental repetition of a personal mantra, minimal effort and access to transcendental consciousness. With…

Yoga Nidra (yogic sleep) deliberately induces and maintains a hypnagogic state of consciousness, at the boundary between wakefulness and sleep, in which the practitioner retai…

Art therapy uses visual creation (painting, charcoal, clay, cut paper) as a therapeutic mediation, the material forming a third party between patient and therapist and shiftin…

Music therapy mobilizes music — produced (active: singing, instrumental playing, improvisation) or listened to (receptive) — as clinical material to release a preverbal expres…

Dance/Movement Therapy is the psychotherapeutic use of movement to foster the emotional, cognitive, physical and social integration of the person. Born of the encounter betwee…

Dramatherapy and psychodrama share the conviction that the staging of the self holds a transformative power. Morenian psychodrama proposes to re-enact suffering on stage in or…

Therapeutic writing is one of the best-documented brief psychological interventions: Pennebaker's signature protocol consists of writing for twenty minutes over four consecuti…

Clinical phototherapy is the therapeutic use of photographic images to support psychic work, not to be confused with the light exposure used for seasonal disorders. Unlike cla…

Tale therapy uses narrative — traditional tale, myth, metaphor, self-narrative — as symbolic material allowing conflicts, fears and experiences otherwise inaccessible to be pu…

The therapeutic puppet draws on the property of a visible, manipulable and distanceable third party: projection onto an animated object allows the subject to deposit, transfor…

Sandplay uses a tray of sand and a collection of miniature figurines with which the subject spontaneously stages symbolic configurations depicting their inner world, subsequen…

The Theatre of the Oppressed aims to break the separation between actors and spectators, regarded as the aesthetic transposition of the political separation between those who…

Aromatherapy is the therapeutic use of essential oils, volatile aromatic substances obtained by distillation, cold pressing or supercritical CO2 extraction, each essential oil…

Chromotherapy posits a therapeutic action of light and colors, an idea running through more than three millennia of medicine (Egyptian solar temples, Avicenna). The author dis…

Sound Healing uses immersion in a vibratory field produced by long-resonance instruments (Himalayan bowls, crystal bowls, gongs, tuning forks). It positions itself within the…

Crystal healing proposes the use of crystals and stones for well-being purposes, rooted in the ancient symbolic and apotropaic use of stones (Egyptian lapis lazuli, Ayurvedic…

Forest therapy, in its codified version of Shinrin-yoku (forest bathing), originates from a Japanese administrative act of 1982 established by Tomohide Akiyama. It belongs to…

Equine therapy uses the horse as a therapeutic mediator; its founding act is the feat of the Danish rider Liz Hartel, silver medalist in dressage at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics…

Animal-assisted therapy is born of a fortuitous observation by child psychiatrist Boris Levinson in 1953, when a mute child addressed his dog Jingles and eventually spoke thro…

Dolphin therapy pairs patients (often children with cognitive disabilities) with captive dolphins, on the model of David Nathanson's protocols beginning in 1978 in Florida, wh…

Horticultural therapy is the deliberate and structured use of horticultural practice and contact with living plants for the purposes of psychic and somatic care; its formal cl…

This chapter brings together the therapeutic uses of water, whose history goes back to the Roman baths (the frigidarium/tepidarium/caldarium circuit prefiguring contemporary t…

An existential offshoot of Humanistic Hypnosis, Spiritual Hypnosis works in augmented consciousness (the subject remains lucid, one rises in consciousness rather than descendi…

A centuries-old spiritual practice become a tool of gentle psychotherapy, at the junction of contemplation and existential clinical work. It rests on four principles: inner si…

A path of spiritual realization (tariqa) aiming at the integral transformation of the being through the remembrance of God and the awakening of the heart (Qalb), transmitted f…

One of the oldest Christian contemplative traditions, hesychasm aims at deification (theosis) through the grace of the divine energies, and not at a psychotherapy in the prope…

The oldest contemplative tradition of Western monotheism, meditative Kabbalah is first and foremost a spiritual path of knowledge of God and inner transformation, not a therap…

Authentic Kashmir Tantrism is a non-dualist path of liberation, founded on the recognition (Pratyabhijna) of the ultimate nature of consciousness as Shiva: absolute, free, lum…

Vipassana (seeing clearly) is a path of liberation from suffering arising from the teaching of the Buddha, founded on the four establishments of mindfulness of the Satipatthan…

Dzogchen (Great Perfection) aims at the direct recognition and stabilization of rigpa, the pure, unfabricated, empty and luminous presence or awareness, to be distinguished fr…

Zen is a path of awakening centred on the absolute primacy of zazen, seated meditation, which Dogen identifies not as a means but as the direct expression of awakening (shusho…

The non-dual paths rest on four principles inherited from the Vedanta: the identity of the Atman (individual Self) and Brahman (the Absolute), non-duality as the absence of on…