12 Counseling Approaches to Better Support Mental Health

Counseling helps people work through challenges, build coping skills and create positive changes in their lives. Given these benefits, many individuals across demographic groups seek out mental health support. In 2023, for example, approximately 24% of adults in the United States received some form of treatment for their mental health.¹

As the needs of individuals seeking out mental health support are diverse, a wide range of counseling techniques have been developed for use in treatment. This blog explores 12 different approaches counselors utilize to support their clients. Read on to learn what each method involves, why it helps people and how these approaches can effectively support people through various mental health challenges.

1. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

CBT focuses on the connection between thoughts, feelings and behaviors.² This approach helps people identify negative thinking patterns that contribute to emotional distress. Clients learn to challenge unhelpful thoughts and replace them with more balanced perspectives. People dealing with social anxiety, for example, might discover that they automatically assume others are judging them. Through CBT, they practice questioning this assumption and developing more beneficial thought patterns.

CBT often involves homework assignments between sessions. Clients might keep track of their moods or try new ways to cope with stress. Research shows that CBT works well for people experiencing stress, depression and anxiety.³

2. Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis looks at hidden reasons behind actions and explores how childhood events continue to affect people well into adulthood. In sessions, clients might use a technique called free association: saying whatever comes to mind without filtering or editing.

In psychoanalysis, therapists also look at their clients’ dreams to understand what they might mean and pay attention to how clients relate to them during sessions. Often, the way clients interact with their therapist is similar to how they act with other important people in their lives, which is known as transference.⁴

3. Humanistic Therapy

Humanistic therapy emphasizes each person's inherent capacity for growth and self-actualization. This approach trusts that people naturally move toward psychological health when they experience the right conditions.⁵ Therapists in this area focus on three main things: understanding how clients feel, being genuine with them and accepting them without judgment. This creates a safe space in which clients can be themselves without worrying about criticism.

4. Existential Therapy

Existential therapy addresses fundamental questions about meaning, freedom, death and isolation. This philosophical approach helps people confront anxiety about life's big questions.⁶

Clients explore what gives their lives purpose and meaning. The therapist doesn't provide answers but helps clients find their own meaning.

5. Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt therapy connects mind, body and environment through present-moment awareness. It uses various exercises to help people discover themselves.⁷ The "empty chair" technique, for example, exemplifies Gestalt methods.⁸ A client might have a conversation with an absent parent by speaking to an empty chair, then switching seats to respond as that parent. This exercise can reveal unfinished emotional labor and help clients integrate their thoughts, feelings and behaviors effectively.

6. Person-Centered Therapy

Person-centered therapy lets clients guide their own sessions. In this approach, the therapist doesn't tell clients what to talk about or what to do. Instead, they work from the belief that clients already know what they need to heal and grow.

This method, developed by the therapist Carl Rogers, revolutionized psychiatry and counseling by shifting the focus away from the therapist as an expert.⁹ Clients set the agenda for each session, while counselors provide a supportive presence and reflect back what they hear.

7. Solution-Focused Brief Therapy

Solution-focused therapy is oriented toward looking ahead rather than dwelling on the past. It focuses on what's working well and what clients want to achieve. One technique therapists use is called the "miracle question."¹⁰ In this approach, therapists ask clients to imagine waking up tomorrow with their problem completely solved and then describe how their day would be different. This helps identify concrete, achievable goals.

Scaling questions ask clients to rate their current situation on a 1-10 scale. When clients see their ratings improve, these measurable changes build momentum toward larger therapeutic goals.

8. Family Systems Therapy

Family systems therapy looks at individual challenges as part of bigger family issues. It helps acknowledge how family members affect each other in connected ways.¹¹ Multiple family members often participate in sessions. Child and family social work principles inform much of this therapeutic approach.

9. Psychodynamic Therapy

Psychodynamic therapy looks at how past events and hidden emotional patterns affect a client's relationships and actions in the present. It's not as intense as full psychoanalysis but uses many of the same ideas.¹² In psychodynamic therapy, clients examine recurring themes in their relationships. Someone who repeatedly attracts unavailable partners, for example, might discover connections to a relationship with an emotionally distant parent.

10. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

DBT combines cognitive-behavioral techniques with mindfulness practices from Eastern philosophy.¹³ This comprehensive approach teaches four core skill sets:

• Emotion regulation skills help people identify and manage intense feelings without acting impulsively.
• Distress tolerance techniques provide healthy ways to cope with crisis situations.
• Interpersonal effectiveness skills improve communication and relationship satisfaction.
• Mindfulness forms the foundation of all other skills, teaching clients to observe their thoughts and feelings without being overwhelmed by them.

11. Mindfulness-Based Therapy

Mindfulness-based therapy helps people focus on the present moment to reduce anxiety, depression and stress. This approach adapts meditation practices to suit counseling sessions. For example, clients learn to watch their thoughts without letting them take over. Body awareness exercises help people notice when they feel tense and teach them ways to lower their stress response.¹⁴

12. Art and Expressive Therapies

Art and expressive therapies use creative activities such as drawing, music, dance or acting to help people express their feelings and heal. These methods often work well for people who find it hard to open up through conversation-focused therapy. The act of creating art can bypass verbal defenses and access deeper feelings. Trauma survivors, for example, might paint images that express experiences they can't yet put into words. The creative process itself thus becomes therapeutic.¹⁵

Launch Your Mental Health Career With Confidence

Through a career in social work, you can help people overcome challenges and heal from traumatic experiences. Learning about different counseling models gives you tools for working with many types of clients in different situations.

Yeshiva University's online Master of Social Work (MSW) program in the Wurzweiler School of Social Work instills the knowledge and provides the practical experience to master effective approaches to supporting clients. You'll learn from faculty with decades of clinical experience and develop your skills through hands-on supervised fieldwork.

To start this transformative journey, review our admissions process today. To learn more about our program and how it can prepare you for a rewarding career supporting others, contact us or schedule a call with an admissions outreach advisor.