Approaches Flashcards
Why adopt an approach?
Pros
●Help organize thinking (so much info coming in an approach help CP narrow that down)
●Suggest assessment and treatment strategies
●Facilitate communication (eg. behaviourist to behaviourist communication)
Cons
●Can be incorrect
●Can serve as blinders (where you disregard important information)
Psychoanalytic Approach
Freud’s personality theory consists of two separate (but interrelated) theories.
•A structural drive theory (emphasized the sexual drives of the ID)
•Developmental theory
***Ego is the bridge between Id and Superego
Important to note these are all driven by the subconscious
***4 Notable features of psychoanalysis:
• Therapists try to be “blank screens.”
●Emphasis on “transference” and “catharsis”
●Therapy occurs over a period of years and involves multiple sessions per week.
●Focus on personality change rather than symptom reduction
***Psychoanalytic concepts:
Transference – When the client reacts to the therapist as if the therapist were some important person in his or her early development
Catharsis – the expression of emotions connected to memories and conflicts
6 Criticism of Psychoanalysis:
- Concepts are too vague to be measured and tested
- Based on clinical experience with upper-class Viennese (lack of generalizability)
- Weak support for measures designed to measure Freudian constructs
- Too much emphasis on sexual and aggressive instincts
- Emphasis on childhood causes results in a neglect of more immediate influences on adult behavior
- Biased view of women
Current Psychodynamic theory:
• Therapists are more active (not blank screens)
●More focused on current relationships
●More time limited
●But are still not well researched
To about Psychoanalysis for exam:
Criticisms; concepts of id/ego/super ego; general idea of it
Adler’s Individual Psychology
• Disagreed with Freud’s emphasis on the role of unconscious instinctual forces and his lack of attention to social factors.
●Believed behavior was motivated by future goals rather than determined by past events.
Key concepts of Individual Psychology
- Inferiority feelings
- Striving for superiority
- Style of life
- Social interest
Adler believes Psychopathology…
Is compensating for feelings of inferiority. Thinks social internet is imperative for a “healthy lifestyle”.
Behaviourist Approach (Behaviourism)
• Based on principles of learning
●Emphasis on assessing and treating behaviors
●Empirical research is paramount
●3 variations
–Classical conditioning or respondent conditioning
–Operant learning
–Social cognition (observational learning)
Classical Conditioning
Ivan Pavlov
●Studying salivation in dogs
●Noted that they would salivate in response to meat powder and experimenters
●Unconditioned stimulus is one that naturally elicits the target response
●E.g., Initially an unconditioned stimulus (meat powder) led to the unconditioned response (salivation).
●Through conditioning a neutral stimulus (the experimenter), called a conditioned stimulus, produces a conditioned response (salivation)
Operant Conditioning
BF Skinner
•believed that most complex behaviors are operant behaviors that are voluntarily emitted as the result of the way they “operate” on the environment.
●The consequences that follow behaviors determines whether they will be repeated.
Cognitive Theories (2)
- Focus on the role that thoughts have in psychopathology.
* Maladaptive thinking and thought processes are responsible for disorders.
3 Levels of Cognitive Distortion
- Automatic Thoughts – come spontaneously, if they are negative they would lead to psychopathology.
- Assumptions – more abstract and generalized. Often take the form of “shoulds,” imperatives, or “if-then” statements.
- Schemas reflect deep-seated models of self and other.
