17: Treatment of Psychological Disorders - Humanistic Psychotherapies

Question 1

Humanistic Psychotherapies

Answer 1

• Focus primarily on the present and future, rather than the past
• Therapy directed at helping clients to discover true identities and to achieve personal growth

Question 2

Client-Centered Therapy

Answer 2

• Carl Rogers believed the most important part of therapy is relationship that develops between client and therapist
• Non-directive approach (only person who can cure the client is client themselves)

Question 3

Client-Centred Therapy

Three important and interrelated therapist attributes:

1. Unconditional Positive Regard

Answer 3

Therapists show clients that they genuinely care about them and accept them, without judgment or evaluation

Question 4

Client-Centred Therapy

Three Important and Interrelated therapist Attributes:

2. Empathy

Answer 4

willingness and ability to view the world through the client’s eyes

• Therapist communicates understanding by reflecting back to client what they are communicating
• Therapist cannot fake it, because client will realize this

Question 5

Client-Centred Therapy

Three Important and Interrelated Therapist Attributes:

3. Genuineness

Answer 5

Therapist must honestly express his or her feelings, whether positive or negative

Question 6

Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt

Answer 6

Term “gestalt” refers to perceptual principles through which people actively organize stimulus elements into meaningful “whole” patterns

• Goals of therapy is to bring background figures into immediate awareness so that client can be “whole” again

Question 7

Gestalt Therapy

Empty-chair Technique

Answer 7

involves client carrying on a conversation with his mother, where he alternately plays his mother and himself

Question 8

There are Five Common Themes in Humanistic Therapy

1. Emotional Defusing

Answer 8

• Various intense and unrealistic fears to be evoked in sessions
• When this occurs in the presence of an accepting and non-condemning therapist the fear is weakened

Question 9

There are Five Common Themes in Humanistic Therapy

2. Interpersonal Learning

Answer 9

• Therapeutic relationship is an important tool for self learning
• Reveals to client how they generally react to others and provides a vehicle to discover and rehearse new ways of reacting to others

Question 10

There are Five Common Themes in Humanistic Therapy

3. Insight

Answer 10

• Various kinds of Insight
• In Humanistic it is insight into present feelings
• Contrast to Psychoanalytic – emotional insight into past
• Contrast to Behavioral – insight into S-R relationship invoking the fear response

Question 11

There are Five Common Themes in Humanistic Therapy

4. Therapy is Step-by-Step Process

Answer 11

• Gradual process – no instant cure
• Some “flashes of insight”
• Primarily each new skill discovered must be practiced in daily life before client can say it is their own

Question 12

There are Five Common Themes in Humanistic Therapy

5. Therapy is a Socially Acceptable Practice

Answer 12

• Psychotherapists designated role of emotional healers
• Provides a confiding relationship that is confidential
• Individuals who seek therapy do so with the hope they will improve and have a better life