Psychological Treatments Flashcards
Psychoanalysts
A kind of therapist.
Psychoanalysts are people specifically trained in Freudian methods.
They may or may not hold medical degrees.
Psychotherapy
Refers to all forms of talk therapy.
Used by psychoanalytic, humanistic, behavioral, and cognitive psychologists.
Be careful: don’t confuse psychotherapy, a general term used to describe any kind of therapy that treats the mind and not the body, with psychoanalysis, a specific kind of psychotherapy pioneered by Sigmund Freud.
Psychoanalysis
A therapeutic technique developed by Freud. A patient undergoing psychoanalysis will usually lie on a couch while the therapist sits in a chair out of the patient’s line of vision.
Psychoanalytic theorists view the cause of disorders as unconscious conflicts.
Psychoanalysts may ask patients to free associate–to say whatever comes to mind without thinking.
Psychoanalysts may use dream analysis. They ask their patients to describe their dreams.
Again, since the ego’s defenses are relaxed during sleep, they hope the dreams will help the therapist see what is at the root of the patient’s problem.
Free Association
A technique sometimes used by psychoanalysts to uncover unconscious conflicts.
Involves saying whatever comes to mind without thinking.
Based on the idea that we all constantly censor what we say, thereby allowing us to hide some of our thoughts from ourselves.
If we force ourselves to say whatever pops into our minds, we are more likely to reveal clues about what is really bothering us by eluding the ego’s defenses.
Dream Analysis
A technique sometimes used by psychoanalysts to uncover unconscious conflicts.
Psychoanalysts ask their patients to describe their dreams.
Since the ego’s defenses are relaxed during sleep, they hope the dreams will help the therapist see what is at the root of the patient’s problem.
What a patient reports about a dream is called the manifest content of the dream.
What is really of interest to the analyst is the latent or hidden content, which is revealed only as a result of the therapist’s interpretive work.
Manifest Content
A term used by psychoanalysts when using dream analysis in order to uncover unconscious conflicts.
What a patient reports about a dream.
The latent content of the dream is revealed only as a result of the therapist’s interpretive work.
Resistance
A term used by psychoanalysts to describe a patient disagreeing with his or her therapist’s interpretations.
Since psychoanalysis can be a painful process of coming to terms with deeply repressed, troubling thoughts, people are thought to try to protect themselves through resistance.
A particularly strongly voiced disagreement to an analyst’s suggestion is often viewed as an indication that the analyst is closing in on the source of the problem.
Transference
In the course of therapy, patients begin to have strong feelings toward their therapists.
Patients may think they are in love with their therapists, may view their therapists as parental figures, or may seethe with hatred toward them.
Psychoanalysts believe that, in the process of therapy, patients often redirect strong emotions felt toward people with whom they have had troubling relationships (often their parents) onto their therapists.
Somatic Treatments
Medical treatments for psychological disorders, including drug treatments (psychopharmacology), psychosurgery, and electroconvulsive shock therapy.
Based on the biomedical model of psychological disorders.
Psychodynamic Theorists
Psychologists who have been influenced by Freud’s work but have significantly modified his original theory.
They assert that unconscious anxieties and other stresses impact psychological disorders and behaviors.
Humanistic Therapies
Focus on helping people understand and accept themselves, and strive to self-actualize.
Assert that if people are supported and helped to recognize their goals, they will move toward self-fulfillment.
Humanistic therapists operate from the belief that people are good and are capable of controlling their own destinies.
Carl Rogers (1902-1987)
Rogers created client-centered therapy, also known as person-centered therapy.
This therapeutic method hinges on the therapist providing the client with what Rogers termed unconditional positive regard.
Unconditional positive regard is blanket acceptance and support of a person regardless of what the person says or does.
Rogers believed that unconditional positive regard is essential for healthy development.
Client-Centered Therapy (or Person-Centered
Therapy)
Created by therapist Carl Rogers.
Hinges on the therapist providing the client with unconditional positive regard.
Unconditional positive regard is blanket acceptance and support of a person regardless of what the person says or does.
Rogers believed that unconditional positive regard is essential for healthy development.
Are usually non-directive. For example, Rogerian therapists would not tell their clients what to do but, rather, would seek to help the clients choose a course of action for themselves.
Unconditional Positive Regard
Important element of client-centered therapy, developed by Carl Rogers.
Blanket acceptance and support of a person regardless of what the person says or does.
Active Listening (also called Reflective Listening)
Technique used in non-directive client-centered therapy.
Therapists using active listening would not tell their clients what to do but, rather, would seek to help the clients choose a course of action for themselves.
Client-centered therapists say very little and encourage the clients to talk a lot about how they feel and sometimes mirror back those feelings (“So what I’m hearing you say is …”) to help clarify the feelings of the client.
Gestalt Therapy
Developed by Fritz Perls.
Gestalt psychologists emphasize the importance of the whole and encourage their clients to get in touch with their whole selves.
Gestalt therapists encourage their clients to explore feelings of which they may not be aware and emphasize the importance of body position and seemingly minute actions.
They want their clients to integrate all of their actions, feelings, and thoughts into a harmonious whole.
Existential Therapies
Humanistic therapies that focus on helping clients achieve a subjectively meaningful perception of their lives.
Existential therapists see clients’ difficulties as caused by the clients having lost or failed to develop a sense of their lives’ purpose.
Therefore, these therapists seek to support clients and help them formulate a vision of their lives as worthwhile.
Counterconditioning
A type of behavioral therapy.
A kind of classical conditioning developed by Mary Cover Jones in which an unpleasant conditioned response is replaced with a pleasant one.
For instance, suppose Charley is afraid of going to the doctor and cries hysterically as soon as he enters the doctor’s office.
His mother might attempt to replace the conditioned response of crying with contentment by bringing Charley’s favorite snacks and toys with them every time they go to the office.
Systematic Desensitization
A type of behavioral therapy.
Involves teaching the client to replace the feelings of anxiety with relaxation.
The first step is to teach the client to relax.
Next, the therapist and client work together to construct what is called an anxiety hierarchy, a rank-ordered list of what the client fears, starting with the least frightening and ending with the most frightening.
Often used to treat specific phobias.
Anxiety (Fear) Hierarchy
Part of the process of systematic desensitization.
The therapist and client work together to construct an anxiety hierarchy, a rank-ordered list of what the client fears, starting with the least frightening and ending with the most frightening.
Flooding
A type of behavioral therapy.
Unlike the gradual process of systematic desensitization, flooding involves having the client address the most frightening scenario first.
Produces tremendous anxiety.
If clients face their fears and do not back down, they will soon realize that their fears are, in fact, irrational.
Aversive Conditioning
A type of behavioral therapy.
Pairs a habit a person wishes to break (e.g., smoking or bed-wetting) with an unpleasant stimulus (e.g., electric shock or nausea).
Token Economy
A type of behavioral therapy involving operant conditioning.
Desired behaviors are identified and rewarded with tokens.
The tokens can then be exchanged for various objects or privileges.
Often used in mental institutions and schools
Cognitive Therapies
Locate the cause of psychological problems in the way people think.
Concentrate on changing unhealthy thought patterns.
Involves challenging the irrational thinking patterns of patients.
An example of an unhealthy way of thinking is attributing all failures to internal, global, and permanent aspects of the self.
