Module 50 (Psych Treatment) Flashcards
How common is psych treatment?
-Treatment is common, with 21% of American adults experiencing a psych disorder in the past year
-1 in 5 Americans receive some form of mental health therapy annually
Who provides psych treatment?
-Licensed clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, clinical or psychiatric social workers, other health professionals
Therapy effectiveness
-Individuals not receiving therapy often improve, but individuals receiving therapy are more likely to improve, improve more quickly, and are less likely to experience relapse of symptoms
~90% of clients reported being at least “fairly well satisfied” with therapy
-Among those who recalled feeling “fair” or “very poor” when beginning therapy, 9 in 10 were now feeling “very good,” “good,” or at least “so-so”
How is therapy effectiveness measured
-Client perceptions, therapist perceptions, and randomized controlled trials
Client perceptions
-people often enter therapy in crisis and many would get better without therapy
-Positive feelings toward therapist, placebo effect, effort justification
Clinician perceptions
-Positive case studies, confirmation bias
Randomized controlled trials
-Researchers randomly assign people to receive therapy or to a waitlist
-Later, evaluate the symptoms, functioning, and well-being of both groups
-First, meta-analysis of 475 psychotherapies found that the average therapy client was better off than 80% of those on waitlist
Positive outcomes of therapy
Symptom reductions, increased emotional stability and extraversion, improved insight, increased emotional awareness, hope, new perspective, new skills, therapeutic alliance
What kind of therapy is effective
-Some research has found that the type of therapy, clinician experience, type of training does not matter for outcomes
-Potential limitations of this work
-Evidence-based therapy: clinical decision making that integrates the best available research with clinical expertise and patient characteristics/preferences
