Individual therapy is a general term for one-on-one counseling, whether it be with children, adolescents, or adults. There are many types of individual therapy, including psychotherapy, CBT, EMDR, nutritional counseling, and child play therapy. There are also many reasons people turn to individual therapy, such as dealing with crisis, addressing impedances, gaining self-awareness, developing insight, improving judgment, modifying thinking and behavior, managing feelings, understanding patterns, examining beliefs, setting goals, and working through life transitions.

Some individual therapy is long-term (usually psychodynamic therapy that is used to examine deep-seated issues); some individual therapy is short-term (usually therapies like EMDR,  and CBT). However, the length of individual therapy is not based on the modality that is chosen, and sometimes one therapy is best augmented by an adjunct therapy (nutritional counseling may play an important role for someone in psychodynamic therapy, if they are trying to manage intense feelings without using medication). Ultimately, people enter the individual process to create a positive life change.