Clinical Psychology

Question 1

What are common assumptions of psychodynamic psychotherapy?

Answer 1

• human behavior is motivated largely by unconscious processes
• early development has a profound effect on adult functioning
• universal principles explain personality development and behavior
• insight into unconscious processes is a key component of psychotherapy

Question 2

What type of psychodynamic psychotherapy can be described as “essentially pessimistic, deterministic, mechanistic, and reductionistic” with humans being determined by irrational forces, unconscious motivations, biological and instinctual needs and drives, and psychosexual events that occurred during the first 5 years of life?

Answer 2

Freudian psychotherapy

Question 3

What is the goal of psychoanalytic therapy?

Answer 3

To reduce or eliminate symptoms by bringing the unconscious into conscious awareness and integrating preciously repressed material into the personality

Question 4

Definition:

The belief that all behaviors are meaningful and serve some psychological function

Answer 4

Psychic determinism

Question 5

Confrontation, or making statements that help the client see his/her behavior in a new way, is a characteristic of what type of therapy?

Answer 5

Freudian psychodynamic therapy

Question 6

Definition:

Explicitly connecting current behavior to unconscious processes

Answer 6

Interpretation (is a part of Freudian therapy)

Question 7

Catharsis, insight, and working through are attributed to improvements in treatment according to what form of psychotherapy?

Answer 7

Freudian therapy

Question 8

Which form of therapy uses a teleological approach that regards behavior as being largely motivated by a person’s future goals, rather than determine by past events?

Answer 8

Adler’s Individual Psychology

Question 9

Which type of therapy focuses on feelings of inferiority, striving for superiority, style of life, and social interests?

Answer 9

Adler’s Individual Psychology

Question 10

In Adlerian Individual Psychology, what is the difference between healthy and unhealthy style of life?

Answer 10

• healthy style of life is marked by goals that reflect optimism, confidence, and concern about the welfare of others
• unhealthy (mistaken) style of life is characterized by goals reflecting self-centeredness, competitiveness, and striving for personal power

Question 11

According to Systematic Training for Effective Teaching (STET), misbehavior in children is viewed as having 1 of 4 goals- what are the goals?

Answer 11

Attention, power, revenge, or display deficiency

Question 12

Definition:

An integration of the conscious and unconscious aspects of the psyche that leads to the development of a unique identity

Answer 12

Individuation

Question 13

Melanie Klein, Robert Fairbairn, Margaret Mahler, and Otto Kernberg are theorists with what orientation?

Answer 13

Object-relations theory

Question 14

Which type of orientation views psychopathology as a result of problems occurring during separation-individuation?

Answer 14

Object relations theory

Question 15

What therapeutic techniques do the humanistic psychotherapies share in common?

Answer 15

• phenomenological approach; understanding one’s subjective experience
• focus on current behaviors
• belief in the individual’s inherent potential for self-determination and self-actualization
• view of therapy as involving an authentic, collaborative, and egalitarian relationship between client and therapist
• rejection of traditional assessment techniques and diagnostic labels

Question 16

A distinguishing characteristic of the humanistic psychotherapies is on the client’s _______________ which is viewed as being individually and/or socially constructed.

Answer 16

Perceived reality

As a result, the focus of therapy is on the process of meaning creation rather than on the accuracy or rationality of meanings that have been created by the client

Question 17

Which type of therapy is based on the belief that all people have an innate “self-actualizing tendency” that serves as the major source of motivation and guided them toward positive, healthy growth?

Answer 17

Carl Roger’s person-centered therapy

Question 18

Which type of therapy views pathology as the self becoming disorganized as the result of inconvenience between self and experience, which can occur when the person experiences conditions of worth?

Answer 18

Carl Roger’s person-centered therapy

Question 19

Carl Roger’s person-centered psychotherapy states that the “right environment” for therapy involves what 3 facilitative conditions?

Answer 19

1. Unconditional positive regard
2. Genuineness
3. Accurate empathetic understanding

Question 20

What type of therapists do not view transference as a necessary component of therapy and, while they acknowledge and accept a client’s transference, they do not foster and interpret it?

Answer 20

Person-centered therapists

Question 21

Fritz Perls founded what type of therapy based on the premise that each person is capable of assuming personal responsibility for his/her own thoughts, feelings, and actions and living as an integrated “whole”?

Answer 21

Gestalt therapy

Question 22

Definition:

Perceptions of parts as wholes

Answer 22

Gestalts

Question 23

What is the difference between the self and self-image in Gestalt therapy?

Answer 23

• self- the creative aspect of the personality that promotes the individual’s inherent tendency for self-actualization or the ability to live as a fully integrated person
• self-image- “darker side” of the personality and hinders growth and self-actualization by imposing external standards

Question 24

What are the 4 boundary disturbances in Gestalt therapy?

Answer 24

1. Introjection- occurs when a person accepts concepts, facts, and standards from the environment without actually understanding or fully assimilating them
2. Projection- disowning aspects of the self by assigning them to other people
3. Retroflection- entails doing to oneself what one wants to do to others
4. Confluence- absence of a boundary between the self and the environment

Question 25

What types of therapy share an emphasis on personal choice and responsibility for developing a meaningful life and assume that people are not static but are in a constant state of evolving and becoming?

Answer 25

Existential psychotherapies

Question 26

What type of therapy did William Glasser (1998) create that is based on choice theory which assumes that people are responsible for the choices they make and focuses on how people make choices that affect the course of their lives?

Answer 26

Reality therapy

Question 27

What type of therapy focuses on how the client experiences the world and assumes that people choose the ways that they deal with the world and that there are always alternative ways for doing so?

Answer 27

George Kelly’s personal construct therapy

Question 28

What are personal constructs (as defined by Personal Construct Theory)?

Answer 28

Bipolar dimensions of meaning (i.e. happy/sad, competent/incompetent, friendly/unfriendly, etc.) that begin to develop in infancy and may operate on an unconscious or conscious level

Question 29

Interpersonal therapy uses interventions to target which 4 problem areas?

Answer 29

1. Unresolved grief
2. Interpersonal role disputes
3. Role transitions
4. Interpersonal deficits

Question 30

What type of therapy utilizes the miracle, exception, and scaling questions?

Answer 30

Solutions-focused therapy

Question 31

What are the 6 stages of change according to the Transtheoretical Model?

Answer 31

1. Precontemplation
2. Contemplation
3. Preparation
4. Action
5. Maintenance
6. Termination

Question 32

What does the acronym OARS stand for (motivational interviewing)?

Answer 32

O- open ended questions
A- affirmations and Express empathy
R- reflective listening
A- summaries