Psychotherapy

1. Psychotherapy Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived. Thomas Merton

2. Therapy • Lots of different kinds • Psychoanalysis • Behavior therapies • Cognitive therapies • Humanistic therapies • Group therapies • Biomedical therapies

3. Therapists • Clinical psychologists • Most are psychologists with a Ph.D. and expertise in research, assessment, and therapy • Psychiatrists • Physicians who specialize in the treatment of psychological disorders • Counselors • Marriage and family counselors specialize in problems arising from family relations • Abuse counselors work with substance abusers and with spouse and child abusers and their victims • Pastoral counselors

4. Psychoanalysis • Anna O. • Catharsis • Psychoanalysis • Freud believed the patient’s free associations, resistances, dreams, and transferences – and the therapist’s interpretations of them – released previously repressed feelings, allowing the patient to gain self-insight • Use has rapidly decreased in recent years • Uncover unconscious causes of psychological disorders • Free association • Resistance • Dream • Transference

5. Behavioral Therapies • Therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors • Counterconditioning • Procedure that conditions new responses to stimuli that trigger unwanted behaviors • Based on classical conditioning • Systematic desensitization • Associates a pleasant, relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli • Aversion therapy • Associates an unpleasant state with an unwanted behavior • nausea ---> alcohol

6. Behavioral Therapies • Token Economy • Behavior modification based on operant conditioning principles that rewards desired behaviors • Patient exchanges a token of some sort, earned for exhibiting the desired behavior, for various privileges or treats

7. Cognitive Therapies • Teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking and acting • Based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions • Rational Emotive • A: activating event • B: irrational belief • C: emotional consequence

8. Cognitive Therapies • Beck’s cognitive therapy • Developed to treat depression • Aim to eliminate exaggerated negative beliefs • Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy • A popular integrated therapy that combines cognitive therapy (changing self-defeating thinking) with behavior therapy (changing behavior)

9. Humanistic Therapy • Client-Centered Therapy • Humanistic therapy developed by Carl Rogers • Therapist uses techniques such as active listening within a genuine, accepting, empathic environment to facilitate clients’ growth • Reflection of feeling • Accurate empathy • Active Listening • Empathic listening in which the listener echoes, restates, and clarifies

10. Group Therapies • Family Therapy • Treats the family as a system • Views an individual’s unwanted behaviors as influenced by or directed at other family members • Attempts to guide family members toward positive relationships and improved communication

11. Biomedical Therapies • Drugs • Antianxiety • Valium & Xanax • Antipsychotics • Thorazine & Haldol • Antidepressants • MAO inhibitors • Prozac, Paxil & Zoloft • Shock therapy • Current of electricity delivered to the brain