Modality Comparison

This is a side-by-side reference for how twenty-one therapeutic modalities approach twenty-one common presentations — a working tool for clinicians choosing between formulations, students learning the contours of the field, and informed patients trying to understand what a particular therapy would actually do with what they are bringing. Each cell offers a short clinical account of how the modality formulates the problem, the mechanism of change it proposes, the characteristic interventions, a vignette of a session in voice, the typical treatment arc, and an honest note on the evidence and limitations. Where a modality is a poor fit for a presentation, the entry says so rather than manufacturing depth. The comparison is designed to be read across as much as down, so that the differences between approaches become visible at the level of sentence and stance, not only at the level of label.

Modality Comparison — How different therapies approach common challenges

How different therapies see the same person.

Select a presenting concern below to see how up to three therapeutic modalities conceptualise the problem, what each posits must change, the interventions a clinician would actually deploy, and where the evidence is firm or thin.

This is a reference tool, not a clinical decision aid. It is meant to clarify the distinctions between schools of thought for clinicians, supervisees, students, and informed laypeople, and to make visible the genuine differences that too often get flattened in textbook summaries.

Select a modality from the rail to begin the comparison.

A note on scope. The descriptions offered here are deliberately broad-stroke and reflect how each modality tends to approach a challenge in routine practice. Real treatment is more nuanced. Clinical decisions should rest on formulation, patient preference, and the specifics of each presentation rather than on comparisons at this level of abstraction.