Treatment of Psychological Disorders Flashcards
Psychotherapy
The generic name that is given to formal psychological treatment. Involves interactions between practitioner and client that
Biological Therapies
Treatment based on medical approaches to illness and disease. Based on the notion that mental disorders result form abnormalities in neural and bodily processes.
Psychopharmacology
The use of medications that affect brain or body functions
Insight
The goal of psychoanalysis; a patient’s awareness of his or her own unconscious psychological processes and how these processes affect daily functioning
Psychodynamic therapy
Reformulation of Freud’s ideas. Approach in which therapist aims to help patient examine their needs, defenses, and motives as a way of understanding why the patient is distressed.
Client-Centered Therapy
An empathetic approach to therapy; it encourages people to fulfill their individual potentials for personal growth through greater self-understanding.
Reflective Listening
Approach to client-centered therapy in which the therapist repeats the client’s concerns to help the person clarify his feelings.
Behavior Therapy
Treatment based on the premise that behavior is learned and therefore can be unlearned through the use of classical and operant conditioning
Cognitive Therapy
Treatment based on the idea that distorted thoughts produce maladaptive behaviors and emotions; treatment strategies attempt to modify these thought patterns.
Cognitive Restructuring
A therapy that strives to help patients recognize maladaptive thought patterns and replace them with ways of viewing the world that are more in tune with reality.
Rational-Emotive Therapy
Approach to cognitive restructuring through which therapist acts as a teacher, explaining the client’s errors in thinking and demonstrating more-adaptive ways to think and behave
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy
Helps prevent relapse of psychological disorder following treatment. Has two goals: to help clients become more aware of their negative thoughts and feelings at times when they are vulnerable and tho help them learn to disengage from ruminative thinking through meditation.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
A therapy that incorporates techniques from cognitive therapy and behavior therapy to correct faulty thinking and change maladaptive behaviors
Exposure
A cognitive-behavioral therapy technique that involves repeated exposure to an anxiety-producing stimulus or situation
Exposure and Response Prevention
A person with a phobia is conditioned to avoid what they fear. Exposure forces them to confront stimulus until avoidance response is extinguished.
Systematic Desensitization
Therapist exposes the client to increasingly anxiety-provoking situations by having the client imagine them and teaching them to relax at the same time
Systems Approach
Approach to therapy that considers individual as part of a larger context. Leads to approaches like family therapy
Expressed Emotion
A pattern of negative actions by a client’s family members; the pattern includes critical comments, hostility directed toward the client by family members, and emotional overinvolvement
Psychotropic Medications
Drugs that affect mental processes. Generally fall into three categories: anti-anxiety drugs, antidepressants, and antipsychotics
Anti-anxiety drugs
Used for short-term treatment of anxiety. Increase activity of GABA, the most pervasive inhibitory neurotransmitter.
Antidepressants
Fall into three categories. Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors stop the process of an enzyme that breaks down seratonin in the synapse. Tricyclic Antidepressants inhibit the reuptake of certain neurotransmitters, resulting in more neurotransmitter being available in the synapse. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors inhibit the reuptake of serotonin, but do not act much on other neurotransmitters
Antipsychotics
Reduce symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations. Traditional antipsychotics act by binding to dopamine receptors to reduce its effects
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)
A procedure that involves administering a strong electrical current to the patient’s brain to produce a seizure; it is effective for some cases of severe depression.
