therapies

• trephination

  early therapy that evil spirits cause psychological disorders

  • cut holes in skull so demons exit
• Dorothea Dix

  advocate for treatment for psychological disorders
• general paresis


  disorder by broad decline in physical and psychological functioning

  • marked personality abnormalities
  • ex: delusions of ones importance/imminent demise
• ethical principles of psychologists

  1. strive to benefit clients
  2. establish trusting relationships
  3. integrity, accuracy, truthfulness
  4. vigilant about potential biases
  5. respect for dignity of all people
• biological therapies

  • requires license
  • prescribe medications
• subsyndromal disorders


  • symptoms of psychological disorders that do not meet DSM-5
  • ex: depressive symptoms (greif, anxiety, etc.)
• barriers to achieving therapy

  1. emotional
  2. financial: low incomes clients are more likely to have issues (can't afford to address them)
  3. recognition: clients don't recognize they have problems
• rapport

  a clients trust and respect in the provider is a key determinant for success of an intervention of psychological disorder
• determinants of rapport

  • cultural competence: understand beliefs/values/expectations based on culture
  • culturally appropriate therapy: therapy conducted to respect culture
• hysteria (sigmund freud)

  conversion disorder for physical and psychological symptoms in female victorian patients
• psychogenic (sigmund freud)

  hysterical symptoms result in unknown psychological cause other than direct damage in NS
• psychogenic glove anesthesia

  lack of feeling in the hand, above the wrist, cannot be caused by nerve injury
• free association

  client says anything that comes to mind no matter how trivial, embarrassing or disagreeable

  • sigmund believed that ideas were linked by association
• resistance

  patients didn't comply with freud's request to avoid certain topics and censorship

  • sigmund believes resistance is due to painful memories
• psychoanalysis

  indirect methods of analysis to uncover memories to explain conflicts (stem from unconscious mind)
• interpretations

  explanations of how thoughts/feelings/behaviours are linked to earlier experiences
• transference

  responding to analyst in ways that recreate their responses to major figures in their own life
• psychodynamic approaches

  family of approaches inspired by Freud's psychoanalytic theories (clinical symptoms derive from childhood)
• ego psychology


  extend and complete freud's theories by examining adaptive capacities
• object relations

  relevance between reality and fantasized relationships with others
• interpersonal therapy

  • psychodynamic approach proves social isolation cause disorders
  • ex: depression, bulimia, social anxiety
• humanistic approaches

  idea that people take responsibility for their lives:

  self actualization, present and future
• client centered therapy

  • client self-acceptance (allow natural tendency to develop)
  • therapist condition growth openly
• three factors to therapist success

  1. genuineness: share authentic reactions
  2. empathic understanding: sense what it's like to be in their shoes
  3. unconditional positive regard: nonjudgemental acceptance
• Carl Roger's Motivational Interviewing

  • client centered intervention (non confrontational)
  • draw out goals, reduce ambivalence, and clarify discrepancies
• Fritz Perls's Gestalt Therapy

  • humanistic therapy
  • integrate inconsistent aspects of themselves
  • through self-acceptance and awareness
• Perls techniques

  • focusing: highlight what is felt and what is appeared to be feeling
  • empty chair: imagine talking to someone familiar
  • hot chair: therapist is confrontational and abrupt
• experiential therapies


  client centered to create empathetic environment while also challenging to keeping their experience
• behavioural approaches

  • assume learning experiences lead to problematic behaviours and responses
• how to behavioural therapist treat clients

  1. observe problematic behaviours
  2. inventions target behaviours
  3. evaluate success of interventions
• application of classical conditioning principles (phobias)

  • irrational fears are classically conditioned by stimuli associated with fearful stimulus
  • treatment: exposure techniques
• exposure techniques


  break the connection between phonic stimulus and fear response
• in-vivo exposure

  clients need real word exposure to feared stimulus to overcome phobia (guided homework)
• token economies

  patients earn tokens with exhibit helpful behaviours (making the bed, dressing neatly, chores)
• shaping reinforcement

  client reinforced for merely getting our of bed, later tokens awarded only if they get out and walk to dining hall (guiding higher functioning)
• contingency management

  learning behaviours by strict consequences

  • ex: telling a child being good earns something, whilst bad behaviour earns something bad
• observational learning: modeling

  people learn new skills to change their behaviour by imitating another person
• vicarious reinforcement

  client watches as the model experiences a good outcome after exhibiting the desired behavior or emotional reaction
• cognitive approaches

  maladaptive behaviours and emotional responses arise from errors in thinking

  • result: thought patterns to change thinking
• Albert Ellis's rational emotive behavioural therapy


  therapist challenges irrational belief of the events that happen directly lead to them to feel or behave in certain ways