Psychotherapy Approaches for People with Disabilities: Literature Review

ABSTRACT:

Fifteen percent of the world’s population has some form of disability. This can be characterized by several types of conditions, each with its specific complexity. Thus, this literature review aims to identify recent scientific studies, in the 2014-2019 five-year period, which describe psychotherapeutic care for people with disabilities. PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, PsycINFO (APA), BVS (Bireme/LILACS) and SciELO were consulted. It was found a total of 1,330 articles. After two selection processes, 26 research met the inclusion criteria. The predominant research methodology was the randomized clinical trial, followed by case studies and descriptive/qualitative studies. People with intellectual and/or physical disabilities, visual and/or hearing disabilities and autism were the most studied populations. Behavioral techniques prevail in the studies included, with a lower incidence of psychodynamic techniques. Psychotherapy also favors coping with adverse situations imposed on the life of any human being. People with disabilities may also have psychotherapeutic needs, since, in the reality of their lives, they also include complexities in addition to their disability. There is strong evidence for the use of psychotherapy as an effective resource for the therapeutic elaboration of problems related to health, education and social life of people with disabilities, regardless of the type of psychotherapeutic intervention.

KEYWORDS: Person with a disability; Psychotherapy; Research