Chapter 15: Treatment of Psychological Disorders

Question 1

Psychotherapy

Answer 1

an interaction between a therapist and someone suffering from a psychological problem, with the goal of providing support or relief from the problem

Question 2

Eclectic Psychotherapy

Answer 2

a form of psychotherapy that involves drawing on techniques from different forms of therapy, depending on the client and the problem

Question 3

Psychodynamic Psychotherapies

Answer 3

explore chlldhood events and encourage individuals to use this understanding to develop insight into their psychological problems

Question 4

Key Techniques to help a client develop insight

Answer 4

• Free Association
• Dream Analysis
• Interpretation
• Analysis of Resistance

Question 5

Resistance

Answer 5

a reluctance to cooperate with treatment for fear of confronting unpleasant unconscious material

• example: the thereapist might suggest that the client’s problem with obsessive health worries could be traced to a child hood revalry with her mother for her father’s love and attention. The client could find the suggestion insulting and fervently resist the interpreation.
• Curiously, the analyst might interpret this resistance as a signal not that the interpretation is wrong but instead that the interpretation is on the right track. If a client always shifts the topic of discussion away from a particular idea, that might signal to the therapist that this is indeed an issue the client could be directed to confront in order to develop insight.

Question 6

Transference

Answer 6

when the analyst begins to assume a major significance in the client’s life and the client reacts to the analyst based on unconscious childhood fantasies

Question 7

Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT)

Answer 7

a form of psychotherapy that focuses on helping clients improve current relationships

Question 8

Behavior Therapy

Answer 8

disordered behavior is learned and that symptom relief is achieved through changing overt maladaptive behaviors into more constructive behaviors

• examples of behavior therapy:
  
  • eliminating unwanted behaviors
  • promoting desired behaviors
  • reducing unwanted emotional responses

Question 9

Token Economy

Answer 9

involves giving the clients “tokens” for desired behaviors, which they can later trade for rewards

Question 10

Exposure Therapy

Answer 10

confronting an emotion-arousing stimulus directly and repeatedly, ultimately leading to a decrease in the emotional response

• depends on the processes of habituation and response extinction that were originally discovered in the study of classical condidtioning

Question 11

Systematic Desensitization

Answer 11

a procedure in which a client relaxes all the muscles of his or her body while imagining being in increasingly frightening situations

• example: a client who fears going to the dentist might first imagine seeing a photo of a dentist followed by imagining seeing a dentist in the office, followed eventually by imagining sitting in the dentist’s chair and opening wide for a dental procedure - all while engaging in exercises that relax the muscles of the body

Question 12

Cognitive therapy

Answer 12

helping a client identify and correct any distorted thinking about self, others or the world

• for example, behaviorists might explain a phobia as the outcome of a classical conditioning experience such as being bitten by a dog, where the dog bite leads to the development of a dog phobia through the simple association of the dog with the experience of pain.
• Cognitive theorists might instead emphasize the meaning of the event. It might not be the event itself that caused the fear, but rather the individual’s beliefs and assumptions about the event and the feared stimulus
• In the case of a dog bite, cognitive theorists might focus on a person’s new or strengthened belief that dogs are dangerous to explain the fear.

Question 13

Cognitive Restructuring

Answer 13

iinvolves teaching 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

• example: a depressed client may believe that she is stupid and will never pass her college courses - all on the basis of one poor grade.
• In this situation, the therapist would work wit hte client to examine the validity of this belief
• It may be that the client has never failed a course before and has achieved good grades in this particular course in the past. In this case, the therapist would encourage the client to consider all this information in determining whether she is truly “stupid.”

Question 14

Mindfulness Meditation

Answer 14

teachese 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.

Question 15

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Answer 15

a blend of cognitive and behavioral therapeutic strategies

Question 16

Person-Centered Therapy

(Client-Centered Therapy)

Answer 16

assumes that all individuals have a tendency toward growth and that this growth can be facilitated by acceptance and genuine reactions from the therapist.

• assumes that each individual is qualified to determine his or her own goals for therapy such as:
  
  • feeling more confident or making a career decision
  • even frequency and length of therapy
• demonstrate three basic qualities:
  
  • congruence, empathy, and unconditional positive regard

Question 17

Gestalt Therapy

Answer 17

has the goal of helping hte client become aware of his or her thoughts, behaviors, experiences, and feelings and to “own” or take responsibility of them

Question 18

Group Therapy

Answer 18

a technique in which multiple participants ( who often do not know one another at the outset) work on their individual problems in atmosphere

Question 19

Antipsychotic Drugs

Answer 19

treat schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders, and which completely changed the way schizophrenia was managed

• antipsychotic drugs made possible the deinsttitutionalization of hundreds of thousands of people and gave a major boost to the field of psychopharmacology

Question 20

Psychopharmacology

Answer 20

the study of drug efects on psychological states and symptoms

Question 21

Antianxiety Medications

Answer 21

drugs that help reduce a person’s experience of fear or anxiety

Question 22

Antidepressants

Answer 22

a class of drugs that help lift people’s moods

• Most commonly used antidepressants today are the SSRIs
  
  • work by blocking the reuptake of serotonin in the brain, which makes more serotonin available in the synaptic space between the neurons

Question 23

Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)

(Shock Therapy)

Answer 23

a treatment that involves inducing a mild seizure by delivering an elctrical shock to the brain

• used to treat severe depression, although it may also be useful for treating mania
  *

Question 24

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)

Answer 24

a treatment that involves placing a powerful pulsed magnet over a person’s scalp, which alters neuronal activity in the brain

• treatment for depression
• Some studies have found that TMS can also be used to treat auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia
  *

Question 25

Phototherapy

Answer 25

therapy that involves repeating exposure to bright light

• may be helpful to people who have a seasonalpattern to their depression
  *

Question 26

Psychosurgery

Answer 26

the surgical destruction of specific brain areas

• used to treat certain psychological disorders, such as OCD

Question 27

Placebo

Answer 27

an inert substance or procedure that has been applied with the expectation that a healing response will be produced

• example: if you take a sugar pill that does not contain any painkiller for a headache thinking it is TYlenol or aspirin, this pill is a placevo

Question 28

Iatrogenic Illness

Answer 28

A disorder or symptom that occurs as a result of a medical or psychotherapeutic treatment itself

• example: when a psychotherapist becomes convinced that a client has a disorder that in fact the client does not have
• As a result, the therapist works to help the client accept that diagnosis and participate in psychotherapy to treat that disorder