Week 7: Psychological Treatment Part 1 Flashcards
Psychodynamic approaches to psychotherapy
The psychological approach to reducing disorder involves providing help to individuals or families through psychological therapy, including psychoanalysis, humanistic-oriented therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), and other approaches.
The biomedical approach to reducing disorder is based on the use of medications to treat mental disorders such as schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety, as well as the employment of brain intervention techniques, including electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and psychosurgery.
The social approach to reducing disorder focuses on changing the social environment in which individuals live to reduce the underlying causes of disorder. These approaches include group, couples, and family therapy, as well as community outreach programs. The community approach is likely to be the most effective of the three approaches because it focuses not only on treatment, but also on prevention of disorders (World Health Organization, 2004).
Behavioural Aspects of CBT
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a structured approach to treatment that attempts to reduce psychological disorders through systematic procedures based on cognitive and behavioural principles.
Behaviour therapy is psychological treatment that is based on principles of learning.
The most direct approach is through operant conditioning using reward or punishment. Reinforcement may be used to teach new skills to people.
When the disorder is anxiety or phobia, then the goal of the CBT is to reduce the negative affective responses to the feared stimulus. Exposure therapy is a behavioural therapy based on the classical conditioning principle of extinction, in which people are confronted with a feared stimulus with the goal of decreasing their negative emotional responses to it.
In flooding, a client is exposed to the source of his fear all at once. An advantage of the flooding technique is that it is quick and often effective, but a disadvantage is that the patient may relapse after a short period of time.
More frequently, the exposure is done more gradually. Systematic desensitization is a behavioural treatment that combines imagining or experiencing the feared object or situation with relaxation exercises. The client and the therapist work together to prepare a hierarchy of fears, starting with the least frightening, and moving to the most frightening scenario surrounding the object.
Desensitization techniques use the principle of counterconditioning, in which a second incompatible response (relaxation; e.g., through deep breathing) is conditioned to an already conditioned response (the fear response)
Aversion therapy is a type of behaviour therapy in which positive punishment is used to reduce the frequency of an undesirable behaviour. An unpleasant stimulus is intentionally paired with a harmful or socially unacceptable behaviour until the behaviour becomes associated with unpleasant sensations and is hopefully reduced.
Key Features of Humanistic Therapies Approaches
Humanistic therapy is a psychological treatment based on the personality theories of Carl Rogers and other humanistic psychologists.
Humanistic therapy is based on the idea that people develop psychological problems when they are burdened by limits and expectations placed on them by themselves and others, and the treatment emphasizes the person’s capacity for self-realization and fulfillment.
Since this is a form of nondirective therapy, a therapeutic approach in which the therapist does not give advice or provide interpretations but helps the person to identify conflicts and understand feelings, Rogers (1951) emphasized the importance of the person taking control of his own life to overcome life’s challenges.
Humanistic therapies attempt to promote growth and responsibility by helping clients consider their own situations and the world around them and how they can work to achieve their life goals.
Carl Rogers developed person-centred therapy (or client-centred therapy), an approach to treatment in which the client is helped to grow and develop as the therapist provides a comfortable, nonjudgmental environment.
The therapeutic alliance is a relationship between the client and the therapist that is facilitated when the therapist is genuine, when the therapist treats the client with unconditional positive regard, and when the therapist develops empathy with the client.
Psychodynamic and humanistic therapies are recommended primarily for people suffering from generalized anxiety or mood disorders, and who desire to feel better about themselves overall. But the goals of people with other psychological disorders, such as phobias, sexual problems, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), are more specific.
Cognitive Aspects of CBT
Cognitive therapy is a psychological treatment that helps clients identify incorrect or distorted beliefs that are contributing to disorder.
In cognitive therapy the therapist helps the patient develop new, healthier ways of thinking about themselves and about the others around them.
The idea of cognitive therapy is that changing thoughts will change emotions, and that the new emotions will then influence behaviour.
The goal of cognitive therapy is not necessarily to get people to think more positively but rather to think more accurately.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy aims to change cognitive distortions and self-defeating behaviors using techniques like the ABC model. With this model, there is an Action, the Belief about the event, and the Consequences of this belief.
Combination (Eclectic) Approaches to Therapy
The most commonly practised approach to therapy is an eclectic therapy, an approach to treatment in which the therapist uses whichever techniques seem most useful and relevant for a given patient.
Treatment for major depressive disorder usually involves antidepressant drugs as well as CBT to help the patient deal with particular problems (McBride, Farvolden, & Swallow, 2007).
