Psychological treatments Flashcards
Outline the CBT treatment.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is the main psychological treatment of Schizophrenia (Sz). CBT is based on the idea that people with mental disorders have irrational and unrealistic ways of thinking. The aim of CBT is to adjust thinking patterns and alter inappropriate beliefs. Patients are encouraged to track back the origins of their symptoms and evaluate the content of their delusions o test the validity of their faulty beliefs. Understanding where symptoms originate can be crucial to some patients as offering a range of explanations for the existence of hallucinations and delusions can help reduce anxiety.
Give an example of CBT.
An example of CBT is called belief modification, which teaches strategies to counter delusional beliefs and hallucinations. Patients are taught to regard their delusions and hallucinations as hypotheses rather than reality and learn to challenge these initial negative symptoms. Typically, CBT is administered around once every 10 days for about 12 sessions to identify and alter irrational thinking.
Explain what outcome studies are.
There is much supporting research for CBT and it has been shown to have a significant effect on improving symptoms of patients Sz. Outcome studies measure how well a person does after treatment and outcome studies of CBT suggests that patients experience fewer hallucinations and delusions.
What did Drury find?
Drury found benefits in terms of reduction on positive symptoms and a 25-50% reduction in recovery time for patients who used a combinations of antipsychotic medication and CBT.
What did Gould find?
In a meta-analysis by Gould, it was found that seven studies reported a statistically significant decrease in the positive symptoms of Sz after CBT.
What has Turkington found?
Some research, such as Turkington found a reduction in both positive and negative symptoms concluding that CBT is highly effective and should be used as a mainstream treatment wherever possible.
Criticism of CBT?
However, CBT is not a definite cure for Sz as although some studies have shown CBT can improve certain symptoms, it only treats the symptoms as it does not offer a cure, but rather a way of ‘normalizing symptoms’.
What did Pilling conclude?
Pilling also concluded that CBT was the superior treatment, particularly referring to long-term outcomes. Whereas patients who did not receive CBT tended to lose benefits of other treatments, CBT patients maintain their gains over longer periods.
Why does it make sense to use CBT to treat Sz.?
Also, as many symptoms of schizophrenia are cognitive in nature, it makes sense to use a cognitive therapy to help counteract these delusions and hallucinations as CBT directly targets cognitive processes. Many people with schizophrenia use coping strategies to control their delusions and hallucinations, so it makes sense for a therapy to build on these coping strategies.
Strength of CBT?
CBT has also been found effective particularly to new patients. Morrison et al administered six months of CBT to patients showing early signs of Sz and twelve months later significantly fewer had a full diagnosis than was the case in a control group.
What are the issues with research into psychological treatments?
There are various issues involved in research into psychological treatments that we need to consider. In Tarrier’s study of the effectiveness of CBT therapies, out of the initial sample of 49 people, 45% refused to co-operate or dropped out during the trial. As Tarrier’s experimental design was outcome research, the significantly high dropout rate causes loss of valuable data, making this research unreliable. There are also ethical issues to consider in Sz research, as research on therapies for Sz must be carried out in a way that does not place vulnerable individuals at unreasonable risk. Researchers must not increase the probability that patients would come to any form of harm. The possibility of harm is heightened when dealing with vulnerable groups such as patients with Sz and so experimenters must approach patients and research carefully.
