Insight Therapies Day 1

1. Insight TherapiesDay 1 AP PSYCHCH 13

2. Insight Therapies • A.k.a. TALK THERAPIES • Type of psychotherapy in which therapist helps patients understand their problems • (gain insight) • All take a clinical perspective – revealing and changing mental processes through discussion and interpretation • TYPES: • Freudian psychoanalysis • Neo-Freudian • Humanistic • Cognitive • Group

3. FreudianPsychoanalysis • Review: Mental illness caused by tensions in unconscious mind; forbidden impulses and threatening memories (from childhood). • Free Association – technique used that allows the therapist to listen to the patient in order to gather clues about their unconscious impulses. • Patient relaxes and talks about whatever comes to mind • Therapist listens for clues to the unconscious • Goal: to get past defense mechanisms of the ego to see into the unconscious • Dream interpretation also used

4. Psychoanalysis (continued) • Analyze: • Resistance – topics that the patient avoids talking about • Transference – interpreting the relationship the patient develops with the therapist; based on the assumption that this relationship mirrors unresolved conflicts in the patients past • Sexual in nature? • Parental role?

5. Psychoanalysis (final) • See patients for years • By bringing insight about the causes of their problems, the patients can deal with issues. • Recovery occurs when a patient is released from repressed childhood memories.

6. Neo-Freudian Psychodynamic Therapies • Still concentrate on motivation • Focus more on the conscious self (ego) • Treat patients face-to-face • See patients once a week for a few months • Life after childhood is also important • Emphasis on social needs and interpersonal relationships (instead of just sexual and aggressive drives)

7. How would they treat this? • 19 year old girl diagnosed with “obsessional neurosis” now obsessive-compulsive disorder. • She was causing her parents distress with a strange bedtime ritual that she performed each night. First, she stopped the large clock in her room and removed other smaller clocks, including her wrist watch. Then she placed all vases and flower pots together on her writing table so they would not fall and break during the night. Next, she ensured that the door of her room would remain half open by placing various objects in the doorway. Then on her bed, she made sure the pillows did not touch the headboard and a certain pillow lay diagonally. Then she shook the quilt until all the feathers sand to the foot-end, after which should would meticulously redistribute them evenly again. Finally she would crawl into bed, and lay her head precisely in the center of the diagonal pillow. • She would do and redo aspects of the ritual, anxious that the had not preformed them properly. • She recognized it was irrational. • Took her 2 hours to get ready for bed each night.

8. How would they treat it? • Freudian Psychoanalysis • Use free association • She had unfulfilled sexual desires • She had unresolved conflicts with her parents from childhood • Neo-Freudian • Focus on current relationship between girl and parents. • Feelings of inadequacy causing her to become the center of their attention at night • Might also work with parents