Psychological Therapies

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

Eclectic Approach The most popular form of therapy- it is basically a smorgasbord where the therapist combines techniques from different schools of psychology.

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

Psychoanalytic Methods Psychotherapists use their techniques to overcome resistance by the client. The psychoanalyst wants you to become aware of the resistance and together interpret (ex. Latent content) it’s underlying meaning.

Transference In psychoanalysis, the patient’s transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships.

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

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

Active Listening Central to Roger’s client-centered therapy Empathetic listening 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: A behavioral therapy that conditions new responses to stimuli that trigger unwanted behaviors. Two Types:

Systematic Desensitization A type of counterconditioning that associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety- triggering stimuli. How would I use systematic desensitization to reduce my fear of dancing in public?

Systematic Desensitization Progressive Relaxation Exposure Therapy Flooding

Aversive Conditioning

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

Cognitive Therapies A therapy that teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking and acting; based on the assumptions that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions.

Cognitive Therapy Cognitive Therapists try to teach people new, more constructive ways of thinking. Is she okay just the way she is?

Cognitive Therapy

Aaron Beck and his view of Depression Noticed that depressed people were similar in the way they viewed the world. Used cognitive therapy get people to take off the “dark sunglasses” in which they view their surroundings

Group Therapies

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

Drugs and Hospitalization

Emptying of Mental Hospitals

Testing New Drugs When a new drug is released there is always too much enthusiasm. Must use a double-blind procedure to combat placebo and experimental effects. These experiments better able use to classify different types of drugs:

Antipsychotic Drugs Antipsychotic drugs are a class of medicines used to treat psychosis and other mental and emotional conditions. These drugs are beginning to help schizophrenics with both positive and negative symptoms. These drugs (Thorazine) often have powerful side effects

Antianxiety Drugs Includes drugs like Valium and Librium. Like alcohol, they depress nervous system activity. Most widely abused drugs. Do they really solve the problem?

Antidepressant Drugs Lift you up out of depression. Most increase the neurotransmitter Norepinephrine.

Prozac, Paxil Zoloft Work by blocking serotonin reuptake.

Electroconvulsive Therapy Biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in which brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized patient.

Psychosurgery Surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue in an effort to change behavior. Egas Moniz developed the lobotomy in the 1930s. Ice pick like instrument through the eye sockets cutting the links between the frontal lobes and the emotional control centers.

Lobotomy