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. Can be verbal or nonverbal. The counselor interrupts only to confirm or accept the client’s feelings or seek clarification.

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: exposure therapies and aversive conditioning therapies.

Exposure therapies expose people to what they normally avoid. A type of counterconditioning that associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli is called systematic desensitization. Using progressive relaxation, the therapist trains you to relax one muscle group at a time until you achieve a drowsy state of complete relaxation.

Then the therapist asks you to imagine (with your eyes closed) a mildly anxiety-arousing situation. If imagining the scene causes you to feel any anxiety, you signal the therapist, possibly with a raised finger, and the therapist will instruct you to switch off of the scene and go back to relaxation. This is repeated until scene causes no anxiety.

Virtual Technology Exposure Therapy

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy allows you to wear a head-mounted display unit that projects a three- dimensional virtual world. This helps to recreate situations that are too expensive or difficult to re-create, such as fear of flying.

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

Aversive Conditioning

What are some ways you can change the behaviors of your friends with aversive conditioning?

Operant Conditioning Behavior Modification is used in this method Token Economy : an operant conditioning procedure that rewards a desired behavior. A person exchanges a token of some sort, earned for exhibiting the desired behavior, for various privileges or treats.

Cognitive Therapy

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. Our thinking colors our feelings, in other words.

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

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

Cognitive Therapy- Does It Work?

Depressed people normally do not exhibit the self-serving bias that is common in non-depressed people. They often attribute their failures to themselves and attribute their successes to external circumstances. Those who are trained to reform negative patterns of thinking and labeling can improve their depression.

Group Therapies

Group therapy does not provide the same degree of therapist involvement with each client; however, it saves therapists’ time and clients’ money. It is often no less effective than individual therapy. The social context allows people both to discover that others have problems similar to their own and to receive feedback as they try out new ways of behaving.

Family Therapy assumes that we live and grow in relation to others, especially our family. We struggle to differentiate ourselves within our family, but we also need to connect with them emotionally. A wide range of people participate in self-help and support groups. Most of these focus on stigmas or hard-to- discuss illnesses such as AIDS.

Clients may tend to overestimate the effectiveness of their psychotherapy for a variety of reasons which may include: 1. People often enter therapy while in crisis. 2. Clients need to believe the therapy was worth the effort. 3. Clients generally speak kindly of their therapists.