Psychology

I. Introduction
In this fast-paced world nowadays, it cannot be prevented that some people feel so fed-up on what is going on around them, to the point that these things have taken toll adversely in their way of living and thinking. Pressures from work, friends, family, and from the society, itself, make it hard among some people to decipher the true meaning of happiness which, in effect, negatively affecting their health  most especially their mental health.  Hence, it is not surprising that there are individuals who have developed mental disorders.

It is in this manner that counseling and psychotherapy have become the best venue to address problems of psychological distress.  There are individuals right now who resorted to psychologists, counselors, psychiatrists and psychotherapists just to cure their mind. For some, counseling has become a therapeutic process wherein they can find someone whom they can talk to and trust with their secrets.  Psychotherapy has become a good ventilation of inner frustrations and stress that have adversely affected a persons way of thinking and behaving.

According to an article published at Medical News Today (11 August 2008), psychotherapy is a very important component in treating mental disorders. It plays a crucial role in successfully treating a person with mental illness, most especially if such treatment is coupled with medication. Another factor also that makes a successful psychotherapy is an established good rapport between the psychotherapist and the client. Accordingly, it is important for a client to feel comfortable and trusting to hisher psychotherapist in order for hisher treatment to be effective. The relationship between the client and the psychotherapist is the topmost important thing in conducting psychotherapy to the patient (or client). If there is no trust and comfort during the session, then the therapy will be forfeited from the very first place because the therapy session itself is creating stress and burden to the mental health of the patient (DeLuca, 2009).

For the part of the psychotherapist, it is most efficient and effective if one is really learned in this kind of craft. It is not an easy job to treat mental disorders as this requires patience and perseverance.  Also, a systematic and scientific approach is needed to be applied by the therapist in psychotherapy.

Psychotherapy has many scientific approaches, depending mainly on the case of the client  which approach is the most effective and efficient for hisher case Among the major scientific approaches in psychotherapy are the psychoanalysis approach, the cognitive behavorial approach, and the psychodynamic approach. The differences among these approaches were further elaborated in the next part of this paper wherein a case of a patient suffering with uncontrolled temper was treated using these approaches.

II. Case Analysis
Description of the patient
The patient is an American married woman, 30 years old and a mother of three children age  15 years old (female), 12 years old (female), and 10 years old (male). All of her children are attending the same school. Her husband is a 40-year old businessman who is always travelling for business purposes. Patient is one of the top executives in the textile company where she devotes most of her time. Because of the demand of the job, she seldom addresses the needs of her children and her family. As a student and a growing teenager, patient was a consistent honor student who always strived for good grades and nice conduct in school. As the only child of her entrepreneur parents, patient always got what she wanted while she was growing up.  Her relationship with her parents started to get sour when she met her husband, her first and last boyfriend. Her parents opposed their marriage wherein the patient was only 18 years old when she married her now husband.

Reason of the patient in seeking psychotherapy
Patient admitted that she cannot control her temper to the point that it scares her children and has been the cause of arguments and, most of the time, violent confrontations with her husband.  It is the same reason that makes her relationship with her colleagues so unhealthy. She knows that a lot of people hate her because of her uncontrolled unpredictable temper. She, herself, hates what she is doing.

Application of psychotherapy approaches
A total of 20 sessions were allotted for this therapy. First few sessions were devoted in establishing rapport with the patient as this is very important to make the patient comfortable with the therapist and with the whole therapy or treatment. Knowing the mental distress that the patient is facing and the background of the patient, the following applications were used

Psychoanalytic. In this approach, the therapist got inside the psyche of the patient  her fantasies and dreams ever since a child.  What does the patient want to be and what to have In this approach, the interpersonal relationship of the patient towards herself was known, and traces of childhood experiences were made to be out from the box (Gordon, 2000).  In this case, it was learned that the patient always strived to earn perfection ever since she was a child. Accordingly, this is her best way of proving to her parents that they have the best child in the world.  In retrospect, however, the parents never demanded such perfection from their daughter. It is only the daughter (patient) who put pressure to herself. Because of this, she developed an obsessive compulsive behavior wherein everything should be followed as planned.  If otherwise, it will ruin her mood that will result to an outburst of temper.

Psychodynamic.  After knowing the patients interpersonal relationship, the therapist also explored the patients relationship with the people around her.  In this approach, it was found out that the patient had no problems as far as the feelings of people around towards her. Her perception that everybody hates her is a by-product of her knowledge that her behavior is not good hence, people hate her.  Her friends and family love her although there is still that excess ill feelings between her and her parents. The patient has also no difficulty in dealing with other people as long as her plans have not gone uninterrupted.

Cognitive Behavioral Approach.  After knowing the interpersonal relationship and the behavior of patient towards the people around her, the therapist applied the cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) wherein the behavioral and the cognitive aspects of the patient was explored.  Knowing that the cause or the trigger factor why the patient suddenly has an outburst of temper because she has an OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder).  In this approach, the patient was exposed to the things that relax her as well as those that distract her mood.

III. Recommendations
After the twenty psychotherapy sessions, it was found out that the patient is suffering of an obsessive compulsive disorder which has become the cause why she has unpredictable and uncontrolled outburst of temper. Because she is so by-the-plan and stick-to-the-plan and so obsessed with the idea of perfection, it has caused her pressure and stress if something went wrong in between hence, the outburst of emotion and bad temper. With regards to her relationship with the people around her, she does not fall-short with attention and love.

In this juncture, the cognitive behavioral therapy is deemed to be the most effective psychotherapy approach for this case.  Since CBT focuses on the thoughts as the cause of feelings towards something, the patient in this approach is trained to change her way of thinking about reaching goals so that she can feel and act better in case her plans do not go as it is planned (National Association of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapists, 2009).  In this approach, the patient will be taught to practice calmness and acceptance on the things that are beyond human control. This will not be an easy thing to do hence, a good working relationship between the therapist and the client should be maintained until the very end of the therapy.