Whilst some psychotherapeutic interventions are designed to treat the patient employing the medical model, many psychotherapeutic approaches do not adhere to the symptom-based model of "illness/cure".

     Some practitioners, such as humanistic therapists, see themselves more in a facilitative/helper role. As sensitive and deeply personal topics are often discussed during psychotherapy, therapists are expected, and usually legally bound, to respect client or patient confidentiality. The critical importance of confidentiality is enshrined in the regulatory psychotherapeutic organizations codes of ethical practice.

     NLP proposed a number of simple techniques involving matching, pacing and leading for establishing rapport with people. There are a number of techniques explored in NLP that are supposed to be beneficial in building and maintaining rapport such as: matching and pacing non-verbal behavior (body posture, head position, gestures, voice tone, and so forth) and matching speech and body rhythms of others

Neurology

Psychiatry

Neuropsychology

Psychoneuroimmunology

       Diseases of the body have a physical manifestation that can often be caused by internal factors, external factors, or a combination of the two. Mental disorders should be no different and when together neurology and psychiatry’s aim was to show that this was the case.

      Tension exists between several divergent groups within NLP reflected in various definitions, training and professional standards. NLP has often been promoted as an art and science of effective communication and 'the study of the structure of subjective experience.

 There are a number of techniques explored in NLP that are supposed to be beneficial in building and maintaining rapport such as: matching and pacing non-verbal behavior (body posture, head position, gestures, voice tone, and so forth) and matching speech and body rhythms of others

NLP proposed a number of simple techniques involving matching, pacing and leading for establishing rapport with people. A recent survey of mental health professionals rated NLP as having questionable validity as a psychotherapeutic technique. While there has been some efforts within NLP to improve its practice, recent research is spread thinly across various disciplines and the field remains splintered.

Cognitive behavioral is based on cognitions, assumptions, beliefs, and behaviors, with the aim of influencing negative emotions that relate to inaccurate appraisal of events. Psychodynamic is a form of depth psychology, the primary focus of which is to reveal the unconscious content of a client's psyche in an effort to alleviate psychic tension. Although it has its roots in psychoanalysis, psychodynamic therapy tends to be briefer and less intensive than traditional psychoanalysis.

Hypnotherapy is undertaken with a subject in hypnosis. Humanistic  emerged in reaction to both behaviorism and psychoanalysis and is therefore known as the Third Force in the development of psychology. It is explicitly concerned with the human context of the development of the individual with an emphasis on subjective meaning, a rejection of determinism, and a concern for positive growth rather than pathology. It posits an inherent human capacity to maximize potential, 'the self-actuating tendency'. The task of Humanistic therapy is to create a relational environment where this tendency might flourish.

Existential is based on the existential belief that human beings are alone in the world. This aloneness leads to feelings of meaninglessness which can be overcome only by creating one's own values and meanings. Systemic Therapy seeks to address people not at an individual level, as is often the focus of other forms of therapy, but as people in relationship, dealing with the interactions of groups, their patterns and dynamics. (includes family therapy & marriage counseling). Transpersonal Psychotherapy is a school that studies the transpersonal, the transcendent or spiritual aspects of the human experience.

Somatic Psychotherapy also referred to as body psychotherapy, is a field in which the therapist uses touch in some way as part of therapy process. Psychodrama/Dramatherapy explores, through dramatic action in groups , the problems, issues, concerns, dreams and highest aspirations of people. Brief therapy is an umbrella term for a variety of approaches to psychotherapy. It differs from other schools of therapy in that it emphasizes (1) a focus on a specific problem and (2) direct intervention. It is solution-based rather than problem-oriented. It is less concerned with how a problem arose than with the current factors sustaining it and preventing change.

     Psychotherapy can be seen as an interpersonal invitation offered by  psychotherapists to aid clients in reaching their full potential or to cope better with problems of life.

   Some therapeutic approaches developed out of the European school of existential philosophy.

    Concerned mainly with the individual's ability to develop and preserve a sense of meaning and purpose throughout life, major contributors to the field and Europe attempted to create therapies sensitive to common 'life crises' springing from the essential bleakness of human self-awareness, previously accessible only through the complex writings of existential philosophers. The uniqueness of the patient-therapist relationship thus also forms a vehicle for therapeutic enquiry.

      Therapy is generally employed in response to a variety of specific or non-specific manifestations of clinically diagnosable and/or existential crises.

Treatment of everyday problems is more often referred to as counseling (a distinction originally adopted by Carl Rogers). However, the term counseling is sometimes used interchangeably with "psychotherapy".