Ch. 16 - Treatment of Psychological Disorders Flashcards
Exposure and response prevention (ERP)
In which a person learns to face the source of his or her fear and anxiety, have proven to be an effective way to treat anxiety disorders
What are the 3 reasons that people fail to get treatment for a mental disorder?
- People may not realize that they have a mental disorder that can be effectively treated
- There may be barriers to treatment, such as beliefs and circumstances that keep people from getting help
- Structural barriers prevent people from physically getting to treatment
Treatments can be divided broadly into two kinds…
- Psychological treatment, in which people interact with a clinician in order to use the environment to change their brain and behaviour
- Biological treatment, in which the brain is treated directly with drugs, surgery, or some other direct intervention
In some cases, both treatments are applied
Psychotherapy
An interaction between a socially sanctioned clinician and someone suffering from a psychological problem, with the goal of providing support or relief from the problem
Eclectic psychotherapy
A form of psychotherapy that involves drawing on techniques from different forms of therapy, depending on the client and the problem.
Approaches to psychotherapy in the 21st century
Cognitive behaviour = 40% Humanistic/existential = 15% Psychodynamic = 13% Interpersonal = 12% Family systems = 10% Other = 10%
Psychodynamic psychotherapies
Explore childhood events and encourage individuals to use this understanding to develop insight into their psychological problems.
Techniques used by a psychologist to help a client “develop insight” …
Free association:
The client reports every thought that enters the mind, without censorship or filtering. Therapist looks for themes that recur across the sessions.
Dream analysis:
May treat dreams as metaphors that symbolize unconscious conflicts or wishes and that contain disguised clues that the therapist can help the client understand
Interpretation:
This is the process by which the therapist deciphers the meaning (ex. unconscious impulses or fantasies) underlying what the client says and does. During the process of interpretation, the therapist suggests possible meanings to the client, looking for signs that the correct meaning has been discovered.
Analysis of resistance:
In the process of “trying on” different interpretations of the client’s thoughts and actions, the therapist may suggest an interpretation that the client finds particularly unacceptable.
Resistance
A reluctance to cooperate with treatment for fear of confronting unpleasant unconscious material.
Transference
An event that occurs in psychoanalysis when the analyst begins to assume a major significance in the client’s life, and the client reacts to the analyst on the basis of unconscious childhood fantasies.
Interpersonal psychotherapy
A form of psychotherapy that focuses on helping clients improve current relationships.
Person-centered therapy (or client-centered therapy)
- A form of psychotherapy that assumes that all individuals have a tendency towards growth and that this growth can be facilitated by acceptance and genuine reactions from the therapist.
- Developed by Carl Rogers in the 1940’s and 1950’s
- The therapist tends not to provide advice or suggestions about what the client should be doing, but instead paraphrases the client’s words, mirroring the client’s thoughts and sentiments.
- Person-centered therapists believe that with adequate support, the client will recognize the right things to do.
-3 basic qualities for therapists to demonstrate:
congruence, empathy, and unconditional positive regard
Gestalt therapy
- A form of psychotherapy whose goal is helping the client become aware of his or her thoughts, behaviours, experiences, and feelings and to “own” or take responsibility for them
- Founded by Frederick “Fritz” Perls in the 1940’s and 1950’s
- Gestalt therapists are encouraged to be enthusiastic and warm towards their clients. Gestalt therapists also reflect back to the client their impressions of the client
- Use a technique called “focusing,” to emphasize the experiences and behaviours that are occurring at that particular moment in the therapy session.
- Clients are also encourage to put their feelings into action, using the “empty chair technique”
Behaviour therapy
-A type of therapy that assumes that disordered behaviour is learned and that symptom relief is achieved through changing over maladaptive behaviours into more constructive behaviours.
- Techniques include:
- operant conditioning procedures, which focus on reinforcement and punishment. Behaviour can be influenced by is consequences (the reinforcing or punishing events that follow)
-classical conditioning, which focus on extinction
Token economy
A form of behaviour therapy in which clients are given “tokens” for desired behaviours, which they can later trade for rewards.
Exposure therapy
- An approach to treatment that involves confronting an emotion-arousing stimulus directly and repeatedly, ultimately leading to a decrease in the emotional response
- “In vivo” (in life) exposure is more effective than imaginary exposure
- Easier situations are practiced first and as fear decreases, the client progresses to more difficult or frightening situations
- If they leave the situation before their anxiety decreases, this can reinforce their anxiety, because they fail to learn that the feared stimulus is not harmful and they learn that avoiding it decreases their anxiety.
Cognitive therapy
- Focuses on helping a client identify and correct any distorted thinking about self, others, or the world
- Cognitive theorists might instead emphasize the “interpretation” of the event
- Cognitive and cognitive-behaviour therapies do well in preventing relapse because once people learn the skills taught in these therapies, they can continue to use them in future situations all on their own, without guidance from a clinician. This is in contrast to medications, which only work if they are present in the body.
Cognitive restructuring
- A therapeutic approach that teaches clients to question the automatic beliefs, assumptions, and predictions that often lead to negative emotions and to replace negative thinking with more realistic and positive beliefs.
- In therapy sessions the cognitive therapist will help the client to identify evidence that supports, and fails to support, each negative thought in order to help the client generate more balanced thoughts that accurately reflect true state of affairs.
Mindfulness meditation
Teaches an individual to be fully present in each moment; to be aware of his or her thoughts, feelings, and sensations; and to detect symptoms before they become a problem.
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)
- A blend of cognitive and behavioural therapeutic strategies
- CBT is “problem focused”, meaning that it is undertaken for specific problems, and “action oriented,” meaning that the therapist tries to assist the client in selecting specific strategies to help address those problems. The client is expected to “do” things, such as engage in exposure exercises, practice behaviour change skills, or use a diary to monitor relevant symptoms
- CBT is “transparent” in that nothing is withheld from the client
- CBT has moderate but less substantial effects for marital distress, anger, somatic disorders, and chronic pain
Group therapy
- A type of therapy in which multiple participants (who often do not know each other at the start), work on their individual problems in a group atmosphere.
- Group therapy is not an approach in itself, but a mode of delivering treatment
Advantages:
-clients realize they are not alone in their suffering
Disadvantages:
- May b e difficult to assemble a group of individuals who have similar needs
- some group members can dominate the discussions, threaten other group members, or make others uncomfortable (ex trying to date someone in the group_
- Clients get less attention than they would in individual therapy
Types of group therapy:
- Self-help groups
- Support groups
Antipsychotic drugs
Medications that are used to treat schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders
Some medications include:
- Mellaril
- Haldol
Psychopharmacology
The study of drug effects on psychological states and symptoms
Mesolimbic pathway
A pathway paved with dopamine neurons extending from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to the nucleus accumbens in the basal ganglia.
