Unit 16: Treatment and Therapy

Question 1

What are the various types of mental health proffessionals?

Answer 1

• Psychiatrists (require an MD)
• Psychiatric nurses (RN)
• Clinical psychologists (PhD, PsyD), licensing required
• Social workers (RSW, LSW, NSW)
• Counselling and educational psychologists (MA, MEd)
• Behaviour analysts (ABA, BaBeA)
• Volunteers, shelters and distress lines

Question 2

Why are biomedical methods used to treat mental disorders?

Answer 2

• Often used if the mental disorder is caused by biological means and not situational or emotional means
• This means must use biological methods to treat them
• Ex. syphillis and brain corrosion

Question 3

What are the different methods of brain stimulation and why is it used?

Answer 3

• lobotomies - not super common today, but involves cutting out portions of the brian that are problematic in order to relieve certain symptoms. Would’ve been used to treat epilepsy
• Sensory deprivation - Float in a tank of water in order to be deprived of any sensory stimulation. Can lead to increased hallucinations for certain individuals. Often used to treat people with anxiety disorders
• Electric shock therapy - Used to stimulate the brain. In the past the methods used were very traumatizing, a lot better now. Used to treat depression if medication has had no effect
• Transcranial magnetic stimulation - magnetic impulses that stimulate the brain, much more modern. Similar treament for depression when other treatments have not worked
• Vagus nerve stimulation - A stimulator that is found on the vagus nerve, the longest nerve in the body, which helps treat mood disorders by inhibiting or exhibiting the neuron activity
• Deep brain stimulation - The newest, also most invasive treatment that is performed in hospitals as it is a surgey that involves implanting stimulators in the brain in order to treat very serious depression. Used as a last resort. Can also be used to treat depression and bad brain trauma.

Question 4

What are different types of medications used?

Answer 4

• Anti-anxiety sedatives - sedate you and calm you down, calms the nervous system. Includes benzodiazepines and barbituates
• Antidepressants - most involve increasing the serotonin and norepinephrine levels in the brain. Specifically include MAO inhibitors, tricyclics, SSRIs, and SNRIs. Often takes the body a month to adjust to the effects

Question 5

What’s insight therapy?

Answer 5

• Involves letting the client perform most of the talking while the therapists. Goal is to have the client come to their own epiphanies while discussing how you feel
• Lots of reframing (confronting) and reflecting (validating)

Question 6

What’s psychoanalysis?

Answer 6

• A form of therapy invented by Freud
• Goal is to gain an insight into the unconscious of a patient
• The therapist requires years of extensive training, and the treatment is very long (takes many years)
• Involves dream interpretation
• Therapist will use free association, where the patient talks using no filters
• Freud would often force patients to discuss traumatic events that occured in their past, which is very unethical
• Transference is involved, where the patient would treat the therapist is an authority figure that was causing them a lot of distress in their actual lives.
• Want patient to reach catharsis, their eureka moment where discussing their trauma doesn’t affect them anymore, and it actually feels better to talk about it

Question 7

What’s client-centered therapy?

Answer 7

• Invented by Carl Rogers
• Refer to individuals as clients instead of patients as it doesn’t make it seem like they’re ill
• Rogers believed that we’re all hard-wired for goodness, and that we all have the strength to fix our own problems
• Clients only need someone to talk to about their problems
• Therapist must very open and provide client with their undivided attention
• Must provide unconditional positive regard (no judgement)
• Empathy is very important
• don’t provide any questions or advice, just simply non-directed reflection that helps validate the clients feelings in a more rational way (don’t help ruminate)

Question 8

What’s aversion therapy?

Answer 8

• A form of behavioral therapy that helps by treating addictions by associating them with unpleasant stimuli
• Also includes contigency management, where you only give client attention when they’re paying attention to you, and exhibiting good behaviors
• Also includes relapse-prevention training, where you track addicts’ behavior and practice coping strategies, and plan ahead of time

Question 9

What’s exposure therapy?

Answer 9

• A form of behavioral therapy that is used to treat phobias and at its extreme, PTSD as well.
• Incubation is the process of putting energy into avoiding phobias, which worsen the phobia
• Involves systematic desensitization, where an individual with an extreme phobia is systematically exposed to increasing forms of their phobia while performing strategies in order to stay calm
• Flooding can be used, which is a much more intense way to overcome phobias, where the individual is flooded with their phobia in a very intense form of their phobia. Must occur under very close supervision
• Helps treat people with PTSD where they can overcome their past trauma in a much safer setting. Must be consentual

Question 10

What are token economies?

Answer 10

• A form of behavioral therapy where people are rewarded for performing tasks and helps reward good behvaiors
• A form of extrinsic motivation
• Helps with people on the autistic spectrum with building good social skills and increasing effective communication
• Found to occur a lot in elementary schools, as well as in professional wokrplaces

Question 11

What’s Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)?

Answer 11

• A form of combination therapy that helps clients identify illogical thoughts and ways of thinking that stem from negative appraisals, attributions, and assumptions.
• Forces client to question and reflect these thoughts and behaviors
• Leads to cognitive restructuring of neural pathways in the brain
• Treats thoughts, behaviours, and emotions
• Quite effective for treating depression
• One criticism is that it may seem like the psychologist is invalidating the clients experiences, and they want you to change

Question 12

Wha are cognitive distortions?

Answer 12

• Distortions within the mind that lead to irrational thinking, and illogical fallacies
• Some examples include filtering out the positive, emotional reasoning, overgeneralizing, catastrophizing everything, the fairness fallacy, and heavens reward

Question 13

what’s dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT)?

Answer 13

• In contrast to CBT, DBT strives to strike a balance between change and accepting the thoughts and feelings of the client
• Don’t want to invalidate their feelings
• Want to keep client calm and work through their distress. Doesn’t mean they must follow through with their emotions
• Still relatively new, no major criticisms

Question 14

What’s positive psychology?

Answer 14

• Focusses on building a client’s strengths and not repressing their trauma and weaknesses
• Involves practicing gratitude and building optimism and the client’s self-image
• Building an awareness of emotions
• Empirical evidence has shown that it changes the neurological activity in the brain

Question 15

What are various self-help strategies?

Answer 15

• self help books by accredited authors
• Certain mobile apps
• Journal writing
• Anxiety hierarchies
• relaxation, exercise for your mental health, and practicing mindfulness
• Avoiding alcohol and recreational substances
• Helplines and disress centres