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.
