Ch. 16 Psychological and Biological Treatments Flashcards
Psychotherapy
Psychological intervention designed to help people resolve emotional, behavioral, and interpersonal problems and improve the quality of their lives
Paraprofessional
Person with no professional training who provides mental health services. There is few or no differences in effectiveness between more and less experienced or professional therapists
Why is there no difference in effectiveness between professional therapists and paraprofessionals?
Regardless of professional training people who fulfill the role of therapist may provide clients with hope, empathy, advice, support, and opportunities for new learning experiences.
What makes a good therapist?
Effective therapists are likely to be warm, direct, empathic, and enjoy their work; establish a positive working relationship with clients; and tend to not contradict clients. Warm, respectful, caring, and engaged
Insight therapies
Psychotherapies, including psychodynamic, humanistic, existential, and group approaches, with the goal of expanding awareness or insight. Two types:
- Psychodynamic therapies
- Humanistic therapies
Psychodynamic therapies
Treatment inspired by classical psychoanalysis and influenced by freuds techniques. Less costly, briefer- weeks or months or open ended and involved meeting only once or twice a week.
Humanistic therapies
Therapies that emphasize the development of human potential and the belief that human nature is basically positive. Emphasis on insight and self actualization. Reject the interpretative techniques of psychoanalysis. They strive to understand clients inner worlds through empathy and focus on clients thoughts and feelings in the present moment
Psychoanalytic and psychodynamic therapies pg. 631
Pg 631
Psychoanalysis goal
Goal: to decrease guilt and frustration and make the unconscious conscious by bringing awareness to previously repressed impulses, conflicts, and memories.
Psychoanalysis key ingredients
- Free association
- Interpretation
- Dream analysis
- Resistance
- Transference-act of projecting intense, unrealistic feelings and expectations from the past onto the therapist.
- Working through-Final stage. Therapists help clients work through, or process, their problems. The insight gained in treatment is a helpful starting point but its not sufficient.
Free association
Technique in which clients express themselves without censorship of any sort
Interpretation
From the clients string of free associations, analysts form hypotheses regarding the origin of the clients difficulties and share them with him or her as the therapeutic relation evolves. Formulate interpretations- explanations of the unconscious bases of a clients dreams, emotions, and behaviors
Dream analysis
Therapist interprets the relation of the dream to the clients waking life and the dreams symbolic significance
Resistance
Attempts to avoid confrontation and anxiety associated with uncovering previously repressed thoughts emotions and impulses
Person centered therapy
Non directive therapy centering on the clients goals and ways of solving problems. Clients can use therapy hour for whatever they choose
Gestalt therapy
Therapy that aims to integrate different and sometimes opposing aspects of personality into a unified sense of self. Key to personal growth is accepting responsibility for ones feelings and maintaining contact with the here and now rather than getting stuck in the past or imagining the future
Existential therapy
Contend that human beings construct meaning and that mental illnesses stem from a failure to find meaning in life.
Group therapy
Therapy that treats more than one person at a time. Example: Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholic anonymous
12 step self help program that provides social support for achieving sobriety
Strategic family intervention
Family therapy approach designed to remove barriers to effective communication
Structural family therapy
Treatment in which therapists deeply involve themselves in family activities to change how family members arrange and organize interactions
Behavior therapist
Focuses on specific problem behaviors and current variables that maintain problematic thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
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Ecological momentary assessment
Assessment of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that arise in the moment in situations in which they occur in every day life
Systematic desensitization
Clients are taught to relax as they are gradually exposed to what they fear in a stepwise manner
Exposure therapy
Therapy that confronts clients with what they fear with the goal of reducing the fear
Dismantling
Research procedure for examining the effectiveness of isolated components of a larger treatment
Response therapy
Technique in which therapists prevent clients from performing their typical avoidance behaviors
Participant modeling
Technique in which therapists first model a problematic situation and then guides the client through steps to cope with it unassisted
Token economy
Method in which desirable behaviors are rewarded with tokens that clients than exchange for tangible reward
Aversion therapy
Treatment that uses punishment to decrease the frequency of undesirable behaviors
Cognitive behavioral therapy
Treatment that attempts to replace irrational cognitions and maladaptive behaviors with more rational cognitions and adaptive behaviors
Metananalysis
Statistical method that helps researchers interpret large bodies of psychological literature
Empirically supported treatment (EST)
Intervention for specific disorders supported by high-quality scientific evidence
Psychopharmacotherapy
Use of medications to treat psychological problems
Anti anxiety medications
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Ex: benzodiazepines-Valium, Xanax, Ativan. Action: increase efficiency of GABA binding to receptor sites
Buspirone: stabilizes serotonin levels
Beta blockers: Atenolol, inderal: compete
Personalized medicine
Medical practice that customizes interventions to maximize success in treating patients with specific psychological or medical disorders and conditions
Electroconvulsive
Treatment for serious psychological problems in which patients receive brief electrical pulses to the brain that produce a seizure
Psychosurgery
Brain surgery to treat psychological problems
