The Alphabet Soup of Psychotherapy

Why There Are So Many Modalities (and How to Make Sense of Them)

If you’ve ever browsed a therapist’s website and felt like you’d stumbled into a bowl of alphabet soup, you’re not alone. EFT, CBT, ACT, EMDR, IFS, DBT — the acronyms swirl together like pasta letters, each one standing for a different therapy approach. To an insider, these letters signal entire worlds of theory, technique, and history. To most people, they look like jargon — mysterious, maybe even a little pretentious. And yet, behind each acronym is a real way of working, a lens for understanding human suffering, and a set of tools for helping people change. The trouble is, there are so many of them that it’s easy to feel lost before you’ve even started.

Why so many? Part of it is history: psychotherapy has developed in waves. Freud’s psychoanalysis was followed by behaviorism, then humanistic therapies, then cognitive-behavioral approaches, and more recently, integrative and somatic methods. Each new wave tries to address what the previous one missed. Add to that an academic culture that prizes novelty — doctoral students often want to name and define their own models — and you end up with a rich, crowded alphabet soup.

A Few Broad Categories Help Cut Through the Clutter

Even though the alphabet soup of therapy looks chaotic, most modalities fall into a small number of larger traditions. Understanding these categories can make the field feel far less overwhelming.

Cognitive-behavioral approaches are among the most widely taught and researched. They work on the premise that our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors influence one another, and that by changing unhelpful thought patterns or behaviors, we can improve mood and functioning. Think of CBT, DBT, ACT, and MBCT as different flavors of this same basic idea — some more skills-based, some more mindfulness-infused. These therapies tend to be structured, goal-oriented, and practical, making them popular for conditions like anxiety, depression, phobias, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Experiential and humanistic approaches focus less on restructuring thought and more on deepening emotional awareness in the present moment. They assume that healing happens when people feel seen, understood, and emotionally safe enough to explore what’s under the surface. Modalities like AEDP, EFT, Gestalt, and Person-Centered Therapy fall into this category. They emphasize emotional connection, authenticity, and the idea that experiencing emotion fully — in the right relational environment — is a pathway to change.

Psychodynamic or depth therapies trace their roots to Freud and Jung, but contemporary versions are far from the cliché of the silent analyst behind the couch. These approaches explore how early relationships and unconscious processes shape current patterns. They look for the threads connecting past and present, often focusing on recurring themes in relationships, unspoken wishes, and defense mechanisms. Psychoanalysis and contemporary psychodynamic therapy are especially valuable for long-standing or complex issues where insight and meaning-making are essential.

Somatic or body-based therapies address the reality that emotional experiences live in the body as much as in the mind. Trauma, in particular, can leave a physical imprint that talking alone may not release. EMDR, TRM, and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy are examples here, working with bodily sensations, nervous system regulation, and sometimes movement or bilateral stimulation. These approaches are often helpful for trauma, anxiety, chronic stress, and physical symptoms linked to emotional states.

Systemic approaches view the individual in the context of larger relational, cultural, and environmental systems. They recognize that a person’s challenges don’t exist in isolation — they’re shaped by family patterns, social dynamics, and community structures. Family Systems Therapy, IFS, and certain couples therapy models operate from this perspective. While IFS is usually practiced with individuals, it’s grounded in systemic thinking, applying the “parts as family members” metaphor to a person’s inner world.

The Common Factors: The Broth in the Soup

In therapy circles, we talk about something called common factors. These aren’t acronyms or techniques — they’re the fundamental elements that make therapy work, no matter the modality. If the alphabet soup of approaches is made up of letters, common factors are the broth that holds it all together.

The concept comes from decades of psychotherapy research showing that while different modalities may use different methods, they all share certain core characteristics. And it turns out these shared elements account for much of the actual improvement people experience. In other words, whether you’re in CBT, psychoanalysis, EMDR, or something else entirely, the parts that matter most might be the ones they all have in common.

Therapeutic alliance – The quality of the relationship between you and your therapist. Built on trust, collaboration, and mutual respect, it’s the container that holds all the work.

Empathy – The therapist’s ability to genuinely understand and feel with you, shaping how safe you feel to explore.

Goal consensus – Shared clarity about what you’re working toward, which keeps the work focused and purposeful.

Positive expectations – A grounded belief — by both you and your therapist — that change is possible and worth the effort.

Corrective experiences – Moments in therapy where something new happens that challenges old patterns and leaves a lasting imprint.

These factors are why two therapists with different styles can both be effective — and why the relationship is just as important as the method.

My Therapy Stack

In tech, a “stack” is the mix of tools used to build something. In therapy, my stack is the set of modalities I draw from to fit the person and the moment.

Mine includes EFIT (Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy) and EFCT (Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy) for deep emotional connection work; AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy) for unlocking and processing core emotions; Psychoanalytic approaches for understanding unconscious patterns; TRM (Trauma Resiliency Model) for nervous system regulation; and ACT for mindful, values-based living.

Not only do these modalities offer specific tools I can use during therapy — they also give me distinct lenses for understanding human suffering. Each one frames distress in a different way, and coming at it from multiple angles allows me to consider different causes and pathways toward change. You’ve probably heard the saying, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” The same is true in therapy. By working with a small but varied set of approaches, I keep my theoretical foundation broad enough to see your challenges from several perspectives, and to choose the most fitting way forward.

This blend covers cognitive, emotion-focused, somatic, and depth-oriented work, so we can explore what’s happening in your thoughts, your body, your relationships, and your deeper history — sometimes all in the same session.

Ready to Begin?

You don’t need to memorize the alphabet before starting therapy. You just need a therapist you trust, who has a flexible toolkit and knows when to use what. If you’re curious how my stack might work for you, get in touch and let’s talk.