The Triangle Therapist Guide

Complete Guide to 200+ Types of Therapy

Q: What's the difference between a therapist, a psychologist, and a psychiatrist?

Therapist broadly covers licensed counselors, clinical social workers, and marriage and family therapists. Psychologists hold doctorates and can provide psychological testing. Psychiatrists are medical doctors who can prescribe medication. All three can provide talk therapy.

Types of Therapy: A Complete Guide to 200+ Approaches | Triangle Therapist

A field guide from Triangle Therapist

The Triangle Therapist Guide to Types of Therapy

Two hundred kinds of therapy. Find your place in the Triangle.

This is a complete map of modern therapy: two hundred–plus named approaches, organized by where each one begins — a thought, a feeling, an action, the body, the story, the relationship, or the quiet center that notices it all. Learn the model in two minutes. Find your point of entry. Meet the Triangle therapists who work there.

See the map Browse the points

The model in one breath

The Center

is you — the part of you that can notice a thought without being the thought. Therapy doesn’t create it. Therapy clears the way back to it.

The Triangle

is your inner weather: thoughts, feelings, and actions, each corner pulling on the other two. Most therapy works somewhere on this triangle.

The Circle

is your lens — the story the world wrote for you before you knew, without your permission. And yet it’s part of our collective story of belonging: everyone carries one, and every circle can be redrawn.

The map

Ten points into the same center

Every therapy on Earth enters through one of these ten points. Every triangle on this map points to you — tap a point see the types of therapy that use it. Ten points in. One Center.

The points

One center, ten points of entry

Below each point of entry you’ll find the names you might meet in a therapist’s profile. The names matter less than the point of entry — a good therapist often uses several.

Enters at the thoughts corner

Through a thought

These therapies start from a simple observation: the sentence in your head is not a fact, it’s a draft. They teach you to catch the draft, test it against reality, and write a fairer one. Expect worksheets, experiments, and homework — this is the most researched corner of the triangle.

This point might fit if your mind runs worst-case stories, harsh self-talk, or loops you can’t argue your way out of.

Names you might hear

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) Cognitive therapy (Beck) REBT (Ellis) Cognitive processing therapy Metacognitive therapy CBASP Problem-solving therapy Stress inoculation training Self-instructional training Reality therapy / choice theory Trial-based cognitive therapy CBT for insomnia (CBT-I) CBT-E for eating disorders CBT for psychosis Panic control treatment Guided & internet-based CBT

↑ Back to the map

Enters at the actions corner

Through what you do

These therapies don’t wait for you to feel different before you act different — they know it usually works the other way around. Change the behavior, and the thoughts and feelings follow. Expect small brave steps, practiced on purpose, with support.

This point might fit if you’re avoiding things that matter, stuck in habits that hurt, or supporting a child who learns best by doing.

Names you might hear

Behavioral activation Exposure therapy Prolonged exposure Exposure & response prevention (ERP) Systematic desensitization Applied behavior analysis (ABA) Verbal behavior Pivotal response treatment Early Start Denver Model Habit reversal training Contingency management Community reinforcement (CRA & CRAFT) Social skills training Applied relaxation Biofeedback & neurofeedback Virtual reality exposure

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Enters at the feelings corner

Through a feeling

These therapies treat emotions as weather you can learn to sail in — not enemies to suppress and not commands to obey. They build concrete skills: riding out a wave, soothing a nervous system, letting a feeling finish its sentence instead of cutting it off.

This point might fit if your emotions arrive at full volume, if numbness is the problem, or if you’re hard on yourself in ways you’d never be with a friend.

Names you might hear

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) DBT for adolescents (DBT-A) Radically open DBT (RO-DBT) Emotion-focused therapy (Greenberg) Emotion regulation therapy Compassion-focused therapy Mindful self-compassion Unified protocol (Barlow) Affect regulation training

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Enters at the Center — the observing self

Through awareness

These therapies begin at the Center of the model: the part of you that can notice a thought without becoming it. Instead of changing the weather, they strengthen your seat in it — through presence, acceptance, values, and honest contact with the moment you’re actually in.

This point might fit if you’re tired of fighting your own mind, searching for meaning, or wanting change that starts with being rather than fixing.

Names you might hear

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Enters at the circle — the lens

Through your story

These therapies work on the circle itself: the beliefs you learned before you could choose them, the patterns that repeat across decades and relationships, the story you see through rather than look at. Some rewrite the story directly; some trace it back to where it began.

This point might fit if the same pattern keeps finding you, if childhood still runs the show, or if quick fixes have never quite reached the root.

Names you might hear

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Enters in the space between two circles

Through your relationships

These therapies make one radical move: the client isn’t a person, it’s a pattern between people. What you do becomes what your partner feels; what they do becomes what you feel; and the loop takes on a life of its own. Couples and family therapists treat the loop — not a villain.

This point might fit if the same argument keeps happening with new words, if a family is stuck in roles nobody chose, or if love is present but the pattern is winning.

Names you might hear

Emotionally focused therapy (EFT — Johnson) Gottman method Bowen family systems Structural family therapy (Minuchin) Strategic family therapy MRI brief therapy Milan systemic therapy Satir transformational therapy Symbolic-experiential (Whitaker) Contextual therapy Imago relationship therapy Integrative behavioral couple therapy Relational life therapy PACT Discernment counseling Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) Functional family therapy Multisystemic therapy Multidimensional family therapy Attachment-based family therapy Family-based treatment (Maudsley) Emotionally focused family therapy Medical family therapy Open dialogue

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Enters at the triangle’s base — where feelings and actions live in muscle

Through the body

Some experiences don’t live in words — they live in a clenched jaw, a held breath, a startle that fires before thought. These therapies work with the nervous system directly: sensation, movement, breath, and the body’s own timing for letting go of what it’s been holding.

This point might fit if you can explain your feelings perfectly and still not feel better — the insight is there, but the body hasn’t gotten the memo.

Names you might hear

Somatic experiencing Sensorimotor psychotherapy Hakomi NARM Bioenergetic analysis Body psychotherapy Somatic IFS Integrative body psychotherapy Dance / movement therapy Trauma-sensitive yoga Yoga therapy Polyvagal-informed therapy Breathwork approaches TRE

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Enters through the circle and the body at once

Through what happened to you

Trauma writes itself into both the lens and the nervous system, so trauma therapies work both at once: helping a stuck memory finish processing so it can become something that happened to you rather than something that keeps happening in you.

This point might fit if a past event still feels present-tense — showing up as flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, or a life carefully arranged around avoiding reminders.

Names you might hear

EMDR Trauma-focused CBT (TF-CBT) Narrative exposure therapy Brainspotting Accelerated resolution therapy Seeking Safety STAIR Child-parent psychotherapy Trauma resiliency model Lifespan integration Flash technique Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy Psychedelic-assisted therapy (investigational)

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Enters beside words — through image, sound, and play

Through image and play

Not everything that needs saying can be said. These therapies give experience another language — paint, sand, music, story, and play — which is why they work so well for children, and for the parts of adults that never learned to talk about it either.

This point might fit for a child who “won’t open up,” or for anyone whose hardest material sits somewhere underneath the words.

Names you might hear

Play therapy (child-centered & directive) Art therapy Music therapy Drama therapy Sandtray & sandplay Expressive arts therapy Poetry therapy / bibliotherapy Theraplay Filial therapy Parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT) DIR / Floortime Circle of Security Watch, Wait & Wonder

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Enters from outside the circle — through community and shared practice

Through other people

Some healing only happens in a room full of people who get it. Group and community approaches use the oldest medicine there is — belonging — alongside structured support, shared recovery, and guided states of deep rest and focus.

This point might fit if isolation is part of the problem, if you heal by helping, or if you want your progress witnessed by more than one person.

Names you might hear

Group therapy (process groups) Twelve-step facilitation SMART Recovery Matrix model Harm reduction psychotherapy Therapeutic communities Psychoeducational multifamily groups Complicated grief treatment Meaning reconstruction (grief) Sex therapy (sensate focus, PLISSIT) Clinical hypnotherapy Ericksonian hypnotherapy Autogenic training Guided imagery

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A note on names — and on evidence

Three completely different things are all called “EFT”: emotion-focused therapy (an individual therapy, Point 3), emotionally focused therapy (a couples therapy, Point 6), and “emotional freedom technique” tapping — which, unlike the first two, does not have a strong evidence base. Some names sound clinical but aren’t well supported by research.

That’s why “evidence-based” is one of our values rather than a buzzword: every approach we recommend or list has real research behind it, and every therapist in our directory tells you plainly which points of entry they work through.

Common questions

Questions people ask about types of therapy

How do I know which type of therapy I need?

You don’t have to know — that’s part of what a first session is for. A useful shortcut: notice where your struggle lives most (thoughts, feelings, actions, the body, your story, your relationships) and start at that point on the map. A good therapist will adjust the approach with you as they get to know you.

What type of therapy is best for anxiety?

Cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure-based therapies have the strongest evidence for most anxiety problems; acceptance and mindfulness-based approaches also perform well. For panic, phobias, and OCD, exposure-family methods like ERP are considered first-line. See our cognitive and behavioral pages.

What type of therapy is best for trauma?

Trauma-focused therapies — EMDR, prolonged exposure, cognitive processing therapy, and TF-CBT for children and teens — carry the strongest guideline recommendations for PTSD. Many therapists combine them with body-based approaches. See our trauma therapies page and the full EMDR guide.

Does the type of therapy matter more than the therapist?

Research suggests the relationship — trust, safety, and fit with your therapist — predicts outcomes at least as strongly as the specific method for many concerns. Both matter: choose a point of entry that makes sense to you, then prioritize a therapist you feel genuinely comfortable with.

How many types of therapy are there?

Surveys have counted anywhere from 400 to 600 named approaches, though most are variants or rebrands of a smaller set. They collapse into about ten families based on where each one begins — which is exactly how this map is organized.

What’s the difference between a therapist, a psychologist, and a psychiatrist?

“Therapist” broadly covers licensed counselors, clinical social workers, and marriage and family therapists. Psychologists hold doctorates and can provide psychological testing. Psychiatrists are medical doctors who can prescribe medication. All three can provide talk therapy; training and license determine the rest.

Your next step

Find your place in the Triangle.

You don’t have to pick a therapy — you just have to find your point of entry. Tell us which point felt like yours, and we’ll match you with a Triangle-area therapist who works through it. Or start with the journaling workbook and meet the model from the inside.

Find your therapist Start with the EMDR guide

Found your point of entry?

Meet the Triangle therapists who work there.

Every therapist profile lists their approaches and specialties — or answer a few questions and we'll match you, starting with a free fifteen-minute call.

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