Module 24

1
Module 24

• Therapies

2
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

• Definition of psychotherapy
• Three basic characteristics
• verbal interaction between therapist and client
• development of a supportive relationship in which
  a client can bring up and discuss traumatic or
  bothersome experiences that may have led to
  current problems
• analysis of the clients experiences and/or
  suggested ways for the client to deal with or
  overcome his or her problems

3
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (CONTD)

• Early treatments
• 1400 to 1700, people who today would be diagnosed
  as schizophrenics were considered insane and
  called lunatics
• Late 1800s, Dr. Benjamin Rush (considered the
  father of American psychiatry), developed the
  tranquilizing chair
• Believed that mental disorders were caused by too
  much blood to the brain

4
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (CONTD)
5
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (CONTD)

• Reform movement
• Moral therapy, popular in the early 1800s
• patients could be helped to function better by
  providing humane treatment in a relaxed and
  decent environment late 1800s, it was abandoned
• 1930s, Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis
• early 1950s, wretched conditions and inhumane
  treatment of patients persisted
• mid 1950s, two dramatic changes happened
  discovery of antipsychotic drugs and development
  of community mental health centers

6
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (CONTD)

• Phenothiazines and deinstitutionalization
• Phenothiazines
• discovered in the early 1950s, block or reduce
  the effects of the neurotransmitter dopamine and
  reduce schizophrenic symptoms, such as delusions
  and hallucinations
• chlorpromazine (Thorazine)
• Deinstitutionalization
• refers to the release of mental patients from
  mental hospitals and their return to the
  community to develop more independent and
  fulfilling lives

7
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (CONTD)

• Community mental health centers
• Offer low-cost or free mental health care to
  members of the surrounding community, especially
  the underprivileged
• Provide briefer forms of therapy that are needed
  in emergencies and focus on the early detection
  and prevention of psychological problems

8
QUESTIONS ABOUT PSYCHOTHERAPY

• Are there different kinds of therapists?
• Psychiatrists
• go to medical school, receive M.D. degree, and
  then take a psychiatric residency additional
  training in pharmacology, neurology,
  psychopathology, and psychotherapeutic techniques
• Clinical psychologists
• go to graduate school in clinical psychology and
  earn a doctorate degree (Ph.D., Psy.D., or Ed.D.)
• Counseling psychologists
• go to graduate school in psychology or education
  and earn a doctorate degree (Ph.D., Psy.D., or
  Ed.D)

9
QUESTIONS ABOUT PSYCHOTHERAPY (CONTD)

• Are there different approaches?
• Insight therapy
• therapist and client talk about the clients
  symptoms and problems with the goal of reaching
  or identifying the cause of the problem
• Cognitive-behavior therapy
• involves the application of principles of
  learning
• therapist focuses on the clients problem,
  identifies specific thoughts and behaviors that
  need to be changed, and provides techniques based
  on learning principles to make desired changes

10
QUESTIONS ABOUT PSYCHOTHERAPY (CONTD)

• Are there different approaches?
• Eclectic approach
• involves combining and using techniques and ideas
  from many different therapeutic approaches
• Medical therapy
• involves the use of various psychoactive drugs to
  treat mental disorders by changing biological
  factors, such as the levels of neurotransmitters

11
INSIGHT THERAPIES

• Psychoanalysis
• Focuses on the idea that each of us has an
  unconscious part that contains ideas, memories,
  desires, or thoughts that have been hidden or
  repressed because theyre psychologically
  dangerous or threatening to our self-concept
• Unconscious conflicts
• Chief reason for the development of psychological
  problems (paranoia) and physical symptoms (loss
  of feeling in a hand)

12
INSIGHT THERAPIES (CONTD)

• Psychoanalysis
• Three techniques
• free association, dream interpretation, and
  analysis of slips of the tongue
• Transfer
• patient reacts to the therapist as a substitute
  parent, lover, sibling, or friend and projects
  strong emotions onto the therapist

13
INSIGHT THERAPIES (CONTD)
14
INSIGHT THERAPIES (CONTD)

• Techniques to reveal the unconscious
• Neuroses
• maladaptive thoughts and actions that arise from
  some unconscious thought or conflict and indicate
  feelings of anxiety
• Free association
• technique that encourages clients to talk about
  any thoughts or images that enter their heads
• assumption is that this kind of free-flowing,
  uncensored talking will provide clues to
  unconscious material

15
INSIGHT THERAPIES (CONTD)

• Techniques to reveal the unconscious
• Dream interpretation
• psychoanalytic technique based on the assumption
  that dreams contain underlying, hidden meanings
  and symbols that provide clues to unconscious
  thoughts and desires

16
INSIGHT THERAPIES (CONTD)

• Problems during therapy
• Transference
• client expresses strong emotions toward the
  therapist as a substitute for someone important
  in the clients life, such as mother or father
• Resistance
• client reluctant to work through or deal with
  feelings or to recognize unconscious conflicts
  and repressed thoughts
• Short-term dynamic psychotherapy
• emphasizes a limited time for treatment (20-30
  sessions) and focuses on limited goals

17
INSIGHT THERAPIES (CONTD)

• Problems during therapy
• Short-term dynamic psychotherapy
• therapists take more active and directive role
• identify and discuss clients problems
• resolve issues of transference
• interpret clients behaviors
• offer opportunity for the client to foster
  changes in behavior and thinking
• results in more active coping and important image
  of oneself

18
INSIGHT THERAPIES (CONTD)

• Client-centered therapy
• Also called person-centered therapy assumes that
  each person has an actualizing tendency to
  develop ones full potential
• Therapists traits
• Empathy
• ability to understand what the client says, feels
• Positive regard
• ability to communicate caring, respect, and
  regard
• Genuineness
• ability to be real and nondefensive in
  interactions

19
INSIGHT THERAPIES (CONTD)
20
INSIGHT THERAPIES (CONTD)

• Cognitive therapy
• Developed by Aaron Beck
• Assumes that we have automatic negative thoughts
  that we typically say to ourselves without much
  notice
• Repeating these automatic negative thoughts
  causes distortion in how we perceive and
  interpret our world and influences how we behave
  and feel

21
BEHAVIOR THERAPY

• Definition
• Also called behavior modification
• uses the principles of classical and operant
  conditioning to change disruptive behaviors and
  improve human functioning
• focuses on changing particular behaviors rather
  than the underlying mental events or possible
  unconscious factors
• Systematic desensitization
• technique of behavior therapy in which the client
  is gradually exposed to the feared object while
  simultaneously practicing relaxation

22
BEHAVIOR THERAPY (CONTD)

• Cognitive-behavior therapy
• Combines the cognitive therapy technique of
  changing negative, unhealthy, or distorted
  thought patterns with behavior therapy
• Technique of changing maladaptive or disruptive
  behaviors by learning and practicing new skills
  to improve functioning