Individual therapy is the most common format for psychotherapy, but not all individual therapy is the same. Your therapist may use techniques from the psychodynamic or insight-oriented, cognitive, and behavioral schools of thought mentioned below, but also from many other approaches to therapy.
Psychoanalysis was developed first by Freud, and later by Jung, Sullivan and others. Psychoanalysis tends to focus less on specific problems of the moment and more on the whole person, the inner world, and underlying issues.
Insight-oriented psychotherapy also focuses on the whole person and uses many of the principles and traditions of psychoanalysis. Therapy sessions are typically once or twice a week, and specific problems may be dealt with more directly than in psychoanalysis. The goal, however, is healing through self-awareness. Insight-oriented psychotherapy helps you to see how earlier events affect current problems and to understand the underlying patterns influencing your current life situation.
Cognitive therapy focuses on helping the person to change the assumptions, mind-sets and patterns of attention which lead to problems. The goal is to resolve difficulties by correcting distortions of thoughts and feelings. Its focus is primarily on current difficulties rather than past events.
Behavioral therapy uses a variety of re-education and re-training techniques to modify behavior patterns that are causing distress or problems in daily living. The focus of behavioral therapy is almost solely present concerns and problems.