Psych Therapy (test 4) Flashcards
Psychodynamic theory
- developed by freud
- neurotic symptoms are caused by unresolved conflicts in the patients past (cause the patient anxiety)
- these conflicts reside in the unconscious: it is the therapists goal to uncover them so they can be resolved
-people cover up their past conflicts through defense mechanism
(repression)
Psychoanalysis: Free Association
- The patient brings whatever comes to mind – does not matter if it makes sense or not.
- The therapist interprets these thoughts
Psychoanalysis: Dream Interpretation
- Manifest content – surface description of the dream
- Latent content – underlying meaning of the dream
Psychoanalysis: Transference
- when the patient becomes so intimately tied to the therapist that they can re-create relationships from their pasts with them (e.g., parent)
- This enables them to act out their prior conflicts on a personal level with the therapist
Humanist Therapy
- the control to change behavior is in the patient- they just need to be made aware of it
- patients know the answers, they just need to learn to feel that they are capable of doing something about it
- INCONGRUENCE: inconsistency between the Real and Ideal self
Person-Centered therapy (carl rogers)
- UNCONDITIONAL POSITIVE REGARD: provides a warm, accepting environment
- the therapist does not assume they know more about the patient than the patient (they don’t try to “interpret” their thoughts)
- They simply try to work through the problem with them so they can find their own solution
- Goal is to reach self-actualization
Interpersonal Therapy
- FOCUSES ON THE SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS
- —>How to improve those relationships and teach each other better ways of supporting each other
-Group Therapy
—->A group of people meet to talk about their particular dysfunction
The group gives emotional support and advice
- Family Therapy (2+ family members)
- –>While one person may be having the most problems – the family is treated as a single unit
- –>Everyone must learn their part; how they contribute to the psychological welfare of the members of the family
- –>Usually translates into the need for changing or developing new familial roles
Behavioral approaches
- The idea that people have learned bad practices in their development – these patterns can be changed through behavioral therapy (i.e., learn new patterns)
- The conscious/unconscious cause… doesn’t really matter.
- How they learned the behavior is irrelevant – how to fix the behavior is what is key
Aversive Conditioning
- Classically condition a negative response to a previously positively held stimulus
- E.g. If someone is an alcoholic, slip in a pill that makes them ill
- E.g., shock a pedophile as they look at pictures of young children
-Somewhat effective, however, the effect does not always last a long time – people tend to revert back to negative behavioral tendencies
Systematic Desensitization
-In order to overcome personally high-anxiety situations, teach systematic strategies to make them more comfortable with the stimuli
- You teach a person different ways of reacting to the stimuli
- ->Visually see yourself going through a process and how you would feel
- ->Then systematically approach the actual stimulus
- Through this process, the patient can change the way they feel about the stimulus
- –>Examples: Fear of dogs, flying, maybe even commitment?
Operant Conditioning techniques
- Using token economies in institutions
- ->The patients are rewarded (through something like a monetary system) for their good behavior
- —>Can buy items or buy activities they enjoy doing
- Contingency contracting
- –>Patients write up contracts where they reward themselves for their attended behavior and punish themselves for the slip-ups
- –>E.g., someone who is trying to stop smoking
- Observational learning
- ->Learn responses by watching others
- –>E.g., “Fearless Peer” “Billy isn’t scared of the bunny, why am I?”
Cognitive Approaches to Therapy
- COGNITIVE TREATENT APPROACH (Teach people a more adaptive way to thinking than their previously dysfunctional cognitions)
- COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORIAL APPROACH (Teach people to think differently through behavioral-like techniques)
- BASICALLY, cognitive therapy aims to change the patterns of thinking that lead to negative personal and social consequences
Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy
- ELLIS (2002)
- ->Attempts to restructure a person’s belief system into something more rational, logical – try to take the patient into a more logical perspective of their own beliefs in order to change (i.e., “why should you think that way?”)
- CHALLENGE THE PATIENT TO MAKE A CHANGE
- –>Irrational beliefs trigger negative emotions, which lead to negative events, then back to negative emotions a self-defeating cycle
A-B-C model of Rational-emotive behavior behavior therapy
A: activating event (actual event, clients immediate interpretations of event)
-relationship break-up
B: beliefs (evaluations, rational, irrational )
-Ill never be loved again
C: consequences (emotions, behaviors, other thoughts )
-anxious, lonely, sad, depressed
Does therapy work
- Eysenck basically said ‘no’
- –>People on the waiting list were not better off than those off it
- –>After a period of time people seemed to just get over their neurosis – spontaneous remission
Others since have said ‘yes’ and, in general,
- –>Patients find it effective (10% do no better or get worse)
- –>No particular therapy strategy seems to be ‘the best’
- Some strategies seem to work better for different disorders
- Therapists have started to use more eclectic approaches they use a mix of treatments
