Psychological Therapies

Psychotherapy An interaction between a trained therapist and someone suffering from psychological difficulties.

Eclectic Approach Therapy where the therapist combines techniques from different schools of psychology. Kind of like a buffet.

Psychoanalysis Freud's therapy. Use free association, hypnosis and dream interpretation to gain insight into the client’s unconscious.

Psychoanalytic Methods Psychotherapists use their techniques to overcome resistance (the blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material) by the client. The psychoanalyst wants you to become aware of the resistance and together interpret it’s underlying meaning to gain self-insight.

Transference In psychoanalysis, the patient transfers to the analyst emotions linked with other relationships. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b02H0dW2xf8

Humanistic Therapy Focuses on people’s potential for self-fulfillment (self-actualization). Focuses on the present and future. Focuses on conscious thoughts (not unconscious ones). Take responsibility for you actions.

Client (Person) Centered Therapy Developed by Carl Rogers. Therapist should use genuineness, acceptance and empathy to show unconditional positive regard towards their clients. Most widely used Humanistic technique.

Active Listening Central to Roger’s client-centered therapy. Empathetic listening is where the listener echoes, restates and clarifies.

Behavior Therapies Therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors. The behaviors are the problems - so we must change the behaviors.

Classical Conditioning Techniques Counterconditioning: Therapy that conditions new responses to stimuli that trigger unwanted behaviors. Two Types: Exposure Therapies & Aversive Conditioning

1. Exposure Therapies Systematic desensitization: type of counterconditioning that associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli. (i.e. phobias) How would I use systematic desensitization to reduce my fear of old women?

Systematic Desensitization uses… progressive relaxation versus Flooding which… exposes you to an anxiety-provoking situation at the highest level of fear all at once.

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy

2. Aversive Conditioning A type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state with an unwanted behavior. How would putting peppers on the fingernails of a nail biter effect their behavior?

Aversive Conditioning

Operant Conditioning Token Economy: an operant conditioning procedure that rewards a desired behavior. A patient exchanges a token of some sort (earned by exhibiting the desired behavior) for various privileges or treats.

Cognitive Therapy

Aaron Beck’s Cognitive Therapy Noticed that depressed people were similar in the way they viewed the world. Used cognitive therapy to get people to take off the “dark sunglasses” with which they view their surroundings.

Cognitive Therapy Cognitive therapists try to teach people new, more constructive ways of thinking. Is .300 a good or bad batting average?

Cognitive Therapy

Albert Ellis & Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) Focuses on uncovering irrational beliefs and replacing them with more productive rational alternatives.

Stress Inoculation Training Teaches people to restructure their thinking in stressful situations. Basically changing your self-talk. Like when you’re nervous and negative before a big exam.

Cognitive Therapy - Does It Work?

Group & Family Therapies Ex. Self-help groups like Alcoholics Anonymous

Biomedical Therapies Therapies aimed at the altering the body chemistry.

Psychopharmacology The study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior.

Drugs and Hospitalization

Emptying of Mental Hospitals

Testing New Drugs Types of drugs include: When a new drug is released there is always too much enthusiasm. Must use a double-blind procedure to combat placebo and experimental effects. Types of drugs include:

Antipsychotic Drugs Medicines used to treat psychosis - typically in schizophrenia and bipolar psychosis patients. Thorazine although effective often has powerful side effects. Tardive dyskinesia – neurotoxic effect involving involuntary movements of the facial muscles, tongue, and limbs.

Antianxiety Drugs Anxiolytic drugs like Valium, Librium, and Xanax. Like alcohol, they depress nervous system activity. Most widely abused drugs.

Antidepressant Drugs Lift you up out of depression. Most increase the availability of norepinephrine or serotonin. Prozac, Paxil & Zoloft are known as SSRI’s (selective-serotonin-reuptake-inhibitors). They block serotonin reuptake. Lithium is an effective mood stabilizer used by those with bipolar disorder.

Prozac, Paxil & Zoloft

Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) Biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in which a brief electric current is sent through the brain. The anesthetized patient will experience a mild seizure. Usually produces temporary memory loss. But has been very effective of temporarily ridding people of suicidal thoughts.

Alternative to ECT Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). Application of magnetic energy to the brain. Doesn’t produce seizures or memory loss. FDA approved in 2008. Still waiting for conclusive data.

Psychosurgery (lobotomy) Egas Moniz developed the lobotomy and it became very popular in the 1940’s and 50’s. Surgery that removes or destroys frontal lobe brain tissue in an effort to change behavior. Ice pick like instrument through the eye sockets cutting the links between the frontal lobes and the emotional control centers.

Lobotomy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0aNILW6ILk