Individual therapy refers to one-on-one mental health treatment that is personalized to suit an individual’s unique needs. It involves setting therapeutic goals, processes one’s past, and learning how to manage one’s symptoms or triggers in order to live a healthier life. 

Individual therapy is almost always conducted with one client and one provider in a one-on-one setting, but it can include another person on occasion—only when it is relevant to an individual’s treatment plan and goals. 

What Type of Therapy Is Individual Therapy?

There is no set type of therapy used in individual therapy. Instead, the type of therapy used will be tailored to the needs and symptoms of the client. 

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), there are five main categories of individual psychotherapy approaches:

1. Psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy
2. Cognitive therapy
3. Behavior therapy
4. Humanistic therapy (i.e., client-centered/person-centered therapy, existential therapy, Gestalt therapy)
5. Integrative or holistic therapy

Sometimes a therapist uses a modality that falls directly in one category or another, but these days, it’s more often the case that therapists draw from multiple modalities to customize their approach to each unique client. They may also care more about the therapy process itself than the theories that guide it. This is called process-based care.