psychological treatments

Question 1

What is CBT

Answer 1

involves inital assessment where patients symptoms and problems clarified
Involves identifying patients irrational beliefs and attempting to challenge them
Patients can be helped to make sense of their delusions and hallucinations and its impact on their feelings and behaviour

Question 2

What is family therapy

Answer 2

takes place within families and aims to reduce the stress in a family- levels of expressed emotion lowered by doing improvinf families beleifs about Sz. This reduces the liklihood of relapsing

Question 3

What are token economies

Answer 3

Based upon behaviourist principles frequently used in institutions. Target desirable behaviours identified by staff. When patient displays desirable behaviour rewarded with a token ( acts as secondary reinforcer) which can be exchanged for a reward or privilege ( primary reinforcer). Makes individuals quality of life more manageable as develop better habits

Question 4

Limitations of pyschological treatments

Answer 4

1) None of the treatments actually treat the patient or ‘cure’ Sz
-they simply just improve quality of life for example token economies increase liklihood patients act in accordance to hospital rules and breaks bad habits. Family therapy reduces stress in family so increases likelihood patient complies with medical advice. CBT improves patients understanding of their symptoms. This suggests that an interactionist approach towards treatment is best adopted:
biological therapies can treat the distal causes of SZ, whilst psychological therapies can treat the
proximal symptoms!