This textbook provides a basic overview of current approaches in psychological psychotherapy and counselling. The foundations consist of the four pillars of psychotherapy and counselling: depth-psychological, learning-theoretical, humanistic and systemic approaches. The views of humanity, theoretical background, therapeutic relationship, techniques used and goals in counselling used in these approaches are presented comparatively. Numerous example cases and excerpts from conversations illustrate the complex theoretical models and typical procedures in practice. Additional chapters are related to empirically confirmed findings on verifiable effective factors in psychotherapy, common elements and differences between psychotherapy and psychosocial counselling, and the significance of one=s view of humanity and the relationship aspect in the context of psychotherapy and counselling.

Prof. Annette Boeger holds the Chair of Developmental Psychology at the Department of Educational Sciences at the University of Duisburg-Essen. She is a qualified psychotherapist with training in conversational psychotherapy and systemic-analytical family therapy.