Describe and evaluate one treatment or therapy from each of the approaches Joelle Cornwall

Social Approach: Family Therapy  Describe: therapy sessions often involve the whole family. During a session a therapist will show the family members how to deal with disruptions caused by an eating disorder.  Evidence: The therapy was developed at the Maudsley hospital and they have provided case studies.

Social Approach: Family Therapy  Evaluate:  Strength:  Weakness:  Strength:  Weakness:

Social Approach: Family Therapy  Ethical Issues:  Social Control: this therapy is evidence of social control as it does not just target an individual but includes the entire family and teaches them to adjust to a socially acceptable ‘healthy’ way of interacting with each other.

Cognitive Approach: Rational Emotive Therapy  Describe: This therapy helps the client identify with negative irrational thoughts and replace them with more rational positive ways of thinking. Therapy involves both cognitive and behavioural elements.  Evidence: Ellis 1991 developed the ABC model to illustrate how thoughts can lead to maladaptive behaviour:  Activating Event: Occurrence of an unpleasant event  Beliefs: Cognitive reaction to unpleasant event  Consequences: State of anxiety

Cognitive Approach: Rational Emotive Therapy  Evaluate:  Strength: Brandsma et al 1978 reported RET us effective in producing behaviour change amongst those who feel guilty for not living up to their own high standards.  Weakness: The argumentative nature of the therapy has been questioned by those who stress the importance of empathy in therapy.  Strength: RET is seen to be more effective than psycho analytic therapies as it aims to get people to accept reality no matter how bad it is.  Weakness: Fancher 1995 argues cognitive therapists may not be able to identify faulty thinking.

Cognitive Approach: Rational Emotive Therapy  Ethical Issues: the argumentative nature may cause psychological distress.  Social Control: Some thoughts may be seen as irrational due to social norms therefore these thoughts are seen to need to be ‘rationalised’ therefore society is controlling what thoughts are ‘normal’

Psychodynamic Approach: Free association  Describe: this therapy gets the patient to say whatever comes into their mind. this enables people to cope with internal conflicts that cause disturbance by bringing them to a more conscious level. The analyst responds o this with interpretations of links.  Evidence: Axline 1947:Dibs

Psychodynamic Approach: Free association  Evaluate:  Strength: This therapy includes all aspects of functioning from early childhood onwards.  Weakness: encouraging a client to talk at length may reinforce thoughts that are already obsessive.  Strength: it is a unique method as is needed to uncover the immeasurable unconscious.  Weakness: interpretation is subjective and therefore may be considered unscientific.

Psychodynamic Approach: Free Association  Ethical issues: May bring up unwanted traumatic memories causing emotional distress to the client.  Social Control:

Learning Approach: Token Economy  Describe: this approach uses positive reinforcement. In institutional settings the frequency with which particular behaviours are performed can be increased. The desired responses are reinforced with tokens (secondary reinforcers) which can be saved up and exchanged for privileges (primary reinforcers)  Evidence: Petry et al 2006 found use of rewards in alcoholics to be highly effective.

Learning Approach: Token Economy  Evaluate:  Strength: Evidence suggests these techniques are extremely effective e.g. Sindelar 2007 used token economy and found it made significant improvements to the individuals.  Weakness: in cases where genes have played a role in development of symptoms, techniques such as token economy can only alter performance of behaviours they do not solve the cause of the problem.  Strength: changes in behaviour are based on sound experimental evidence and credible techniques.  Weakness: could be seen as ethically unsound as withholding rights from people could cause psychiatric o even physical harm such as food or contact with family.

Learning Approach: Token Economy  Ethical Issues: May withhold basic human rights to use as tokens.  Social Control: strong form of social control as people are manipulated to perform socially desirable behaviours decided by the institution they are in and repeat them.

Biological approach: Electro convulsive therapy  Describe: this involves inducing a convulsive seizure. It was original based on the incorrect premise that schizophrenia and epilepsy do not occur in he same person and hence that if one can induce an epileptic fit in a schizophrenic patient they should be cured of their condition.  Evidence: Cerletti

Biological approach: Electro convulsive therapy  Evaluate:  Strength: ECT can often be effective when anti depressant drugs have failed.  Weakness: ECT can cause memory disruptions ranging from minor short term memory loss to an impaired ability to acquire new memories.  Strength: Compared with depressive patients who receive psychotherapy alone, those who have received CT treatment are much less likely to commit suicide.  Weakness: There are a number of ethical objections as often it is used on patients who are unable to give informed consent due to their condition.

Biological approach: Electro convulsive therapy  Ethical Issues: Mental and physical harm. The inability to give informed consent  Social Control: