ToolsUse
Compare the therapies
A side-by-side look at the approaches on this site. Choose what matters to you and the list narrows. Nothing is ranked, and the order is alphabetical.
Who you see matters more than which Approach (modality) The kind of therapy someone uses, such as CBT or psychodynamic therapy. You'll also see it called a modality. More in the jargon decoder they use. Why who you see matters more than what they do explains why. Knowing which approaches suit you still helps narrow the field, since nobody can try out every therapist.
Nothing matches all of those. Try removing a choice.
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)
A practical talking therapy, said as the word "act". It helps you live well alongside hard thoughts and feelings, instead of waiting for them to go away first.
- Ways in
- Practical skills, Feelings
- Style
- Structured
- Length
- Often short
- Evidence
- Strong
- In Australia
- Widely available
- By video
- Works well by video
Behavioural activation
A therapy that works on what you do. You and your therapist look at what a week actually contains, then plan specific things back into it. The planning comes first, and the motivation is expected to follow.
- Ways in
- Practical skills
- Style
- Structured
- Length
- Often short
- Evidence
- Strong
- In Australia
- Widely available
- By video
- Works well by video
CBT for ADHD
A version of CBT adapted for ADHD. It focuses on day-to-day organisation and self-management: planning, setting priorities and breaking big tasks into smaller steps.
- Ways in
- Practical skills, Thinking it through
- Style
- Structured
- Length
- Often short
- Evidence
- Moderate
- In Australia
- Harder to find
- By video
- Ask the practice
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)
A structured, practical form of talking therapy. It's built on a simple idea: what you think affects how you feel, and both affect what you do.
- Ways in
- Thinking it through, Practical skills
- Style
- Structured
- Length
- Often short
- Evidence
- Strong
- In Australia
- Widely available
- By video
- Works well by video
Compassion-focused therapy (CFT)
A therapy developed for people with a lot of shame and self-criticism. It helps you build a supportive, caring relationship with yourself in place of a blaming, critical one.
- Ways in
- Feelings, Practical skills
- Style
- Structured
- Length
- Varies
- Evidence
- Emerging
- In Australia
- Harder to find
- By video
- Ask the practice
Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT)
A structured therapy for people whose emotions come on hard and fast, and who find it hard to settle again. It teaches practical skills, in a set order, for staying present, getting through a crisis, managing strong emotions and handling other people.
- Ways in
- Practical skills, Feelings, The relationship with the therapist
- Style
- Structured
- Length
- Often longer
- Evidence
- Strong
- In Australia
- Harder to find
- By video
- Ask the practice
EMDR
A structured therapy for memories that still feel raw. You bring a painful memory to mind for short stretches while your attention is split, usually by following your therapist's hand as it moves from side to side. The aim is for the memory to become less upsetting.
- Ways in
- Feelings, The body
- Style
- Structured
- Length
- Often short
- Evidence
- Strong
- In Australia
- Widely available
- By video
- Ask the practice
Internal family systems (IFS)
A therapy that starts from the idea that your mind isn't one voice. It treats having different parts as normal, and works with those parts directly.
- Ways in
- Feelings, Understanding yourself, The relationship with the therapist, The body
- Style
- Open-ended conversation
- Length
- Often longer
- Evidence
- Emerging
- In Australia
- Harder to find
- By video
- Works well by video
Narrative therapy
A therapy built on one principle: you are not the problem, the problem is the problem. It works on the story you tell about your life, including what that story leaves out.
- Ways in
- Your story, The relationship with the therapist, Feelings
- Style
- Open-ended conversation
- Length
- Often short
- Evidence
- Emerging
- In Australia
- Widely available
- By video
- Ask the practice
Person-centred therapy
A therapy where you set the agenda. Your therapist follows where you go and stays with it, on the idea that being properly heard, by someone who isn't judging you, is itself the treatment.
- Ways in
- Feelings, The relationship with the therapist
- Style
- Open-ended conversation
- Length
- Often longer
- Evidence
- Moderate
- In Australia
- Widely available
- By video
- Works well by video
Psychedelic-assisted therapy
A treatment overseen by approved psychiatrists, where a measured dose of a psychedelic drug is given to support psychological treatment. In Australia it's rare and expensive, and it isn't a first treatment.
- Style
- Specialist treatment
- Length
- Varies
- Evidence
- Emerging
- In Australia
- Rare
- By video
- In person
Psychodynamic therapy
A therapy that looks at the parts of your life you can't quite see from the inside. Its core idea is that a lot of what shapes how you feel and act sits outside your awareness, and was laid down early.
- Ways in
- Understanding yourself, The relationship with the therapist, Feelings, Your story
- Style
- Open-ended conversation
- Length
- Often longer
- Evidence
- Moderate
- In Australia
- Harder to find
- By video
- Often in person
Schema therapy
A longer-term talking therapy that works on deep, long-standing patterns. A schema is a deep belief about yourself and other people, formed early, that shapes how you read situations.
- Ways in
- Understanding yourself, Feelings, The relationship with the therapist, Your story
- Style
- Open-ended conversation
- Length
- Often longer
- Evidence
- Moderate
- In Australia
- Harder to find
- By video
- Ask the practice
Somatic therapy
Talking therapies that pay close attention to the body. "Somatic" just means bodily. They work less with what you think about something and more with what your body does when it comes up.
- Ways in
- The body, Feelings
- Style
- Open-ended conversation
- Length
- Often longer
- Evidence
- Emerging
- In Australia
- Harder to find
- By video
- Often in person
Trauma-focused CBT
A family of talking therapies that work directly on the memory of something that happened, using the ideas of CBT.
- Ways in
- Thinking it through, Practical skills
- Style
- Structured
- Length
- Often short
- Evidence
- Strong
- In Australia
- Widely available
- By video
- Ask the practice
Paying for it
Whether a session gets a Medicare Australia's public health insurance scheme. For mental health, it gives rebates on sessions with psychologists and some other professionals, usually through a Mental Health Treatment Plan. More in the jargon decoder Rebate The amount Medicare pays back towards a session. It comes back to you after you've paid, so what you pay yourself is the fee minus the rebate. More in the jargon decoder depends mostly on who provides it, so ask the practice. How to get a Mental Health Treatment Plan explains how the rebate works.
Many of these approaches can also be done in a group, which usually costs less per session. A Mental Health Treatment Plan A document your GP writes with you. It makes you eligible for a Medicare rebate on up to ten individual sessions a calendar year: six, then a review with your GP, then the remaining four. The plan itself isn't therapy. More in the jargon decoder also gives a rebate on up to ten group sessions a year, on top of the ten individual ones. How group therapy works covers what happens in a group and how to find one.
About the labels
The Evidence levels Strong: many good-quality trials and reviews, with consistent results. Moderate: good trials and reviews, but fewer of them, or results that vary. Emerging: early research that looks promising but isn't settled. Limited: little good-quality research so far. More in the jargon decoder are explained in our editorial policy. The labels describe each approach in general. They can’t tell you how well an approach will suit you, and the approach that sounds most like you isn’t always the one that helps most. Why the obvious match isn’t always the right one explains why.
Nothing you choose here is stored.