Schizophrenia Treatments Flashcards
Conventional drugs are used primarily to combat which type of symptoms?
Positive
Name one example of a conventional antipsychotic drug.
Chlorpromazine
What is the basic mechanism of conventional antipsychotic drugs?
Reduce the effects on dopamine, thus reducing the symptoms of schizophrenia.
How do conventional antipsychotic drugs work?
Conventional antipsychotic drugs are dopamine antagonists in that they bind to dopamine receptors but do not stimulate them, thus blocking there action. By reducing stimulation of the dopamine system in the brain, antipsychotics can eliminate hallucinations and delusions.
What is the basic assumption of CBT?
People have distorted beliefs which influence their behaviour in maladaptive ways.
What are patients encouraged to do during CBT?
> Trace back the origins of their symptoms in order to get a better idea of how the symptoms may have developed.
Evaluate the content of their delusions or of any internal voices they hear, and to consider ways in which they might test the validity of their faulty beliefs.
What are outcome studies?
Outcome studies measure how well a patient does after a particular treatment for that condition.
What do outcome studies of CBT suggest?
That patients who receive CBT experience fewer hallucinations and delusions and recover their functioning to a greater extent than those who receive antipsychotic medication alone.
What did Drury et al. (1996) find?
Benefits in terms of a reduction of positive symptoms and a 25%-50% reduction in recovery time for patients given a combination of antipsychotic medication and CBT.
Psychoanalytic theory is based on what assumption?
That individuals are often unaware of the influence of unconcious conflicts on their current psychological state.
What is the aim of psychoanalytic theory?
To help bring unconcious conflicts into the concious mind where they can be dealt with.
Why did Freud believe schizophrenics could not be analysed?
Because he believed that they could not form a transference with the analyst. Transference refers to the process by which emotions that are originally associated with one person are unconsciously shifted onto the analyst.
What did Gottdiener’s meta-analysis find overall?
> 66% of those receiving psychotherapy improved after treatment, compared with only 35% of those who did not receive psychotherapy.
What has research into the effectiveness of CBT shown?
Research has tended to show that CBT has a significant effect on improving the symptoms of patients with schizophrenia. For example, Gould et al. found that all 7 studies in their meta analysis reported a statistically significant decrease in the positive symptoms of schizophrenia after treatment.
Why is it difficult to assess the effectiveness of CBT alone?
Most studies of the effectiveness of CBT have been conducted with patients treated at the same timewith antipsychotic medication.
What did Kingdon and Kirschen find?
They found that many patients were not deemed suitable for CBT because psychiatrists believed they wouldn’t fully engage with the therapy.
What is one argument against using psychodynamic therapy?
It’s expense prevents it being adopted on a large scale. Some critics argue that because it does not appear more effective than antipsychotic medication, psychodynamic therapy is not worth the extra expense.
