PSYCHAP15

• Psychotherapy


  Professional treatment by someone with special training
• Sigmund Freud is widely credited with launching modern psychotherapy
• Psychotherapy isn't always curative, and many modern treatments place little emphasis on talking
• Psychoanalysis spawned many offspring as Freud's followers developed their own systems of treatment
• Approaches to treatment


  • Insight therapies
  • Behavior therapies
  • Biomedical approaches
• Insight therapies


  Types of talk therapies where clients engage in complex verbal interactions with their therapists
• Behavior therapies


  Make direct efforts to alter problematic responses (phobias) and maladaptive habits (drug use)
• Biomedical approaches


  Involve interventions into a person's biological functioning
• Most widely used biomedical procedures

  • Drug therapy
  • Electroconvulsive (shock) therapy
• Most common presenting problems

  • Excessive anxiety
  • Depression
• A client in treatment does not necessarily have to have an identifiable psychological disorder, some people seek help for everyday problems
• Almost half of the people who use mental health services in a given year do not have a specific disorder
• Many people who need therapy don't receive it
• Psychologists


  Clinical psychologists and counseling psychologists specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders and everyday behavior problems
• Clinical psychologists


  Training emphasizes the treatment of full-fledged disorders
• Counseling psychologists


  Training is slanted toward the treatment of everyday problems
• Psychiatrists


  Physicians who specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders, increasingly emphasize drug therapies
• Other mental health professionals

  • Clinical social workers
  • Psychiatric nurses
  • Counselors
• Insight therapies


  Involve verbal interactions intended to enhance clients self-knowledge and thus promote healthful changes in personality and behavior
• Psychoanalysis


  An insight therapy that emphasizes the recovery of unconscious conflicts, motives, and defenses through techniques such as free association and transference
• Freud's theory


  Neurotic problems are caused by unconscious conflicts left over from early childhood, people depend on defense mechanisms to avoid confronting conflicts, which remain hidden in the depths of the unconscious
• Probing the unconscious

  1. Analyst attempts to discover the unresolved conflicts causing the clients neurotic behavior

  2. Free association - clients spontaneously express their thoughts and feelings

  3. Dream analysis - therapist interprets the symbolic meaning of the client's dreams
• Interpretation


  Therapist's attempts to explain the inner significance of the clients thoughts, feelings, memories, and behaviors
• Resistance


  Largely unconscious defensive maneuvers intended to hinder the progress of therapy, clients don't want to face up to the painful, disturbing conflicts that they have buried in their unconscious
• Transference


  Clients unconsciously start relating to their therapist in ways that mimic critical relationship in their lives, conflicting feelings about important people are transferred onto the therapist
• Psychoanalysis can be a slow, painful process of self-examination that routinely requires three to five years of hard work
• According to Freud, once clients recognize the unconscious sources of conflicts, they can resolve these conflicts and discard their neurotic defenses
• Classical psychoanalysis as done by Freud is not widely practiced anymore, many found it necessary to adapt psychoanalysis to different cultures, changing times, and new kinds of patients
• Psychodynamic approaches


  Variations of Freud's original approach
• Client-centered therapy


  An insight therapy that emphasizes providing a supportive emotional climate for clients, who play a major role in determining the pace and direction of their therapy
• Incongruence


  Inconsistency between a person's life concept and reality, makes people feel threatened by realistic feedback about themselves from others
• Client-centered therapists


  Help clients to realize that they do not have to worry constantly about pleasing others and winning acceptance
• Conditions client-centered therapists must provide

  • Genuiness - therapist must be genuine with the client, communicating honestly and spontaneously
  • Unconditional Positive regard - therapist should provide warmth and caring for the client, with no strings attached
  • Empathy - therapist must understand the client's world from the client's point of view
• Therapeutic process in client-centered therapy

  Therapist's key task is clarification, trying to function like a human mirror, reflecting statements back to their clients, but with enhanced clarity
• Cognitive therapy


  An insight therapy that emphasizes recognizing and changing negative thoughts and maladaptive beliefs
• Cognitive therapy's goal


  To change the way clients think, clients are taught to detect their automatic negative thoughts and therapists help them see how unrealistically negative the thoughts are
• Cognitive therapy tends to be a relatively short-term treatment, typically lasting 4 to 20 sessions
• Cognitive therapy


  A creative blend of "talk therapy" and behavior therapy, although it is primarily an insight therapy
• Group therapy came of age during world war 2 and its aftermath in the 1950s
• Group therapy


  The simultaneous treatment of several clients in a group