schizophrenia🫂 (CBT and fam therapy)

Question 1

what is cognitive behaviour therapy? (CBT)

how many sessions?

does it get rid of the symptoms of sz?

Answer 1

Method of treating disorders based on both cognitive and behavioural techniques.

5-20, in-groups or individual basis.

no but makes it easier to cope w

Question 2

what does CBT do from cognitive viewpoint?

Answer 2

therapy aims to deal with thinking such as challenging those negative thoughts.

Question 3

what’s the aim of CBT?

Answer 3

to identify irrational thoughts of patient.

Question 4

how does CBT help? 3 ways…

Answer 4

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patients can be helped to make sense of hallucinations or delusions and their impact on feelings and behaviour
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it offers psychological explanations for the existence of hallucinations and delusions thus can reduce anxiety
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delusions can be challenged so patient can come to learn that their beliefs are not based on reality

Question 5

how does family therapy help?

Answer 5

fam therapist aim to improve functioning of a family with a member suffering from sz

Question 6

what are the 6 strategies of family therapy identified by pharoh?

Answer 6

• forming therapeutic alliance with family members
• reducing stress of caring for relative with sz
• improving ability of fam to anticipate and solve problems
• reducing anger and guilt in fam members
• helping fam members achieve a balance between caring for individual with sz and maintaining their own lives
• improving families beliefs about and behaviour towards sz

Question 7

what do the strategies aim to do?

Answer 7

reduce stress lvls and EE, whilst increasing likelyhood of parents complying w medication. results decease likelihood of relapse an re-admission to hospital

Question 8

what are token economies?

Answer 8

reward systems used to manage the behaviour of patients with sz, in particular those who have developed patterns of maladaptive behaviour thru spending long periods of time in hospitals.

Question 9

what bad habits do sz patients develop?

Answer 9

often for patients to develop bad hygiene or remain in pjs all day.

Question 10

what happens when u modify the suffers bad habits?

Answer 10

modifying these bad habits doesn’t cure sz, but improves patients quality of life and makes it more likely they can live outside hospitals.

Question 11

what are tokens?

why is the immediacy of reward important?

Answer 11

they are given to patients when they carry out a desireable behaviour that has been targeted for reinforcement

bc it prevents delay discounting, the reduces effect of a delayed reward

Question 12

what r examples of good behaviour?

Answer 12

getting dressed in morning, making bed oct, according to patients individual issues.

Question 13

why it it important to give patient reward/token immediately?

Answer 13

bc it prevents delay discounting, the reduces effect of a delayed reward

Question 14

what are rewards?

Answer 14

although tokens have no value themselves, they can be swapped for tangible rewards.

Question 15

what r token economies based on?

Answer 15

operant conditioning

Question 16

what r tokens?

Answer 16

secondary reinforces bc they only have value when patient had learned that they can be used to obtain rewards.

Question 17

what may rewards include?

Answer 17

sweets, cigarettes, magazines, having room cleaned, walk outside hospital oct.

Question 18

AO3❌

2 weaknesses?

Answer 18

improve quality of life but don’t cure sz. they aim to make sz manageable. helps by making patient make sense of it and in some cases challenge symptoms. family therapy helps reduce stress of ppl living with sz patient. token economies help make patients behaviour more socially acceptable. all these are good but should not be confused with curing sz. of course biological treatments don’t cure sz either however they do reduce symptoms, therefore the failure to cure sz is a weakness.

ethical issues. they don’t have serious side effects however they can raise ethical issues. eg, token economies have been proved controvesia. the major issue is privileges. more privileges are given to patients who don’t suffer with severe sz whereas those who suffer w severe symptoms are not seen to be producing a desirable behaviour. families with severe sz suffers in have then questioned token economies, resulting It reduced use of token economies. CBT may raise issues bc they challenge a persons paranoia, however at what point does this interfere w individuals freedom of thought. eg, a CBT patient may have beliefs in highly controlled govt, CBT can easily stray in modifying their politics.

Question 19

AO3✅

a strength of psychological therapies?

Answer 19

evidence for effectiveness. research reviewed the results of 34 studies of sz and concluded that CBT has significant but small effect on both negative and positive symptoms. pharoh et al reviewed evidence for effectiveness of fam therapy an found moderate evidence showing fam therapy significantly reduces hospital readmission over the source of a year and improved quality of life for patients and families.

there have been problems with quality of evidence meaning that evidence for fam therapy was weak. a review of token economies found that 3 studies where patients had been randomly allocated to conditions w total of 110 patients. random allocation is important in controlling extraneous variables. 1/3 studies showed that improvement in symptoms and none yielded useful info about behaviour change. overall there is only modest support for the effectiveness of psychological therapies and sz remains hardest mental health problem to treat