Chp 17.1: Treatment of Psychological Disorders I

Question 1

Counselling and clinical psychologists

Answer 1

– PhD people with that can perform psychotherapeutic techniques

Question 2

Psychiatrists

Answer 2

– medical doctors who specialize in psychotherapy and biomedical treatments, such as drug therapy

Question 3

Psychodynamic Therapies

Answer 3

Focuses on internal conflict and unconscious factors that underlie maladaptive behaviour

Question 4

Psychoanalysis

Answer 4

– means Freud’s theory of personality AND the approach to treatment that he developed

• Goal: help clients achieve insight – conscious awareness of underlying problems
o Allows them to realize their behaviour and adjust them

Question 5

Free Association (psychoanalysis)

Answer 5

• Sit behind client and tell them to say anything that enters conscious awareness without censorship
• Provide clues to unconscious material

Question 6

Dream Interpretation (psychoanalysis)

Answer 6

• Dreams express impulses, fantasies, and wishes that the client’s defences keep in the unconscious during waking hours
• “royal road to unconscious”
• Analyst tries to help client search for the unconscious material contained in the dreams, find out what symbols in dream actually represent

Question 7

Resistance (psychoanalysis)

Answer 7

• Defense manoeuvres that hinder the process of therapy
• Can be manifested in many ways
o Experience difficulty in free associating
o May come late or “forget” apt
o May avoid talking about certain topics
• Sign that sensitive anxiety-arousing material is being approached
• This promotes insight on client

Question 8

Transference (psychoanalysis)

Answer 8

• Analyst reveals nothing about themselves to client
• Occurs when client responds irrationally to the analyst as if he or she were an important figure from the client’s past
• Most important process since it brings out into the open repressed feelings and maladaptive behaviour patterns that the analyst can point out to the client
• Can be positive (love, dependency) or negative (hate, anger) towards the analyst
• Very important part of therapy

Question 9

Interpretation (psychoanalysis)

Answer 9

• Any statement provided by therapist intended to provide the client with insight into his or her behaviour or dynamics
• Interpretations should be near the surface of awareness
• Deep interpretations are bad, cannot be informative
• Client must eventually arrive at the insight themselves

Question 10

Brief Psychodynamic Therapies

Answer 10

• Classic psychoanalysis therapy takes years, but studies show most improvements happen within 10 sessions. So a briefer version was developed.
• Most improvement occur by 10th session, then improvement decreases over time
• Some research says that the long term therapy is better than other short methods
• Clients face the therapist directly, meet less often
• Conversation replaces free association
• Long term therapies usually more effective
• Focus on life problems rather than rebuilding personality
• More focused on current problems that on past childhood experiences
• One type: interpersonal therapy
o 15-20 sessions max
o Focus on marital conflict, loss, or social skills - find solutions to these problems
o Effective therapy for depression and somatic system disorder

Question 11

Humanistic Psychotherapies

Answer 11

• view humans as capable of consciously controlling their actions and taking responsibility for their choices and behaviour
• Focus on future and present, rather than past

Question 12

Client-Centred Therapy

Answer 12

• Most widely used form of humanistic therapy
• Relationship develops between client and therapist to foster self-exploration
• Referred to as client not patient
• Carl Rogers
• 3 important interrelated therapist attributes:
• 1) Unconditional positive regard - trust, acceptance, nonjudgement, caring
• 2) Empathy - willing to view the world through the client’s eyes, “reflecting” (repeating) what they say
• 3) Genuineness - therapist expresses honest feelings, positive or negative
• Rogers believed that when these 3 things were achieved, the client can grow
• Job is not to interpret your life, it is to let you talk
• Therapy most likely to be successful when the therapist is perceived as genuine, warm, empathetic

Question 13

What are the 3 important interrelated therapist attributes in humanistic therapy?

Answer 13

• 1) Unconditional positive regard - trust, acceptance, nonjudgement, caring
• 2) Empathy - willing to view the world through the client’s eyes, “reflecting” (repeating) what they say
• 3) Genuineness - therapist expresses honest feelings, positive or negative

Question 14

Gestalt Therapy

Answer 14

• Perls
• Humanistic approach
• Gestalt = organized whole
• Patient is ignoring the background - important feelings, wishes thoughts that are blocked
• Bring them into awareness, get in touch with inner self to be “whole” again
• Often done in groups
• Methods are active and dramatic than client centered
• Much more confrontational than client-centered therapy
• Often involves role playing
o Empty-chair technique - imagine mom sitting in chair and talk to her (playing both roles)
• Perls was much less scientific than Rogers, didn’t test his therapy
• Rogers did videotape stuff
• Others tested empty-chair technique and its quite successful

Question 15

Cognitive Therapies

Answer 15

• Focus on role of irrational and self-defeating thought patterns
• Do NOT emphasize unconscious