1. Treatment for Psychological Disorders
Chapter 14
AP Psychology

2. Psychotherapy – An Overview
The treatment of psychological disorders through psychological methods
Clients
Inpatients
Outpatients
Therapist
Psychiatrists
Psychologists
Basic goal: to help people change their way of thinking, feeling, or behavior

3. Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
Personality and behavior reflect the ego’s efforts to referee unconscious conflicts
Psychoanalysis – understanding unconscious conflicts
Freud’s one-on-one methods – free association, dream analysis, hypnosis
Aims to help clients gain insight into and work through problems
Manifest content
Latent content
Freudian slip
Transference
Resistance – when a person disagrees with the therapist’s interpretations – people try to protect themselves through resisting the truth –unconsciously blocks the process of revealing unconscious conflicts

4. Contemporary Psychoanalysis
Traditional psychoanalysis – too long and expensive
Short-term psychodynamic therapy evolved – less expensive and time consuming
Interpersonal therapy – helps clients cope with current problems and situations (work, marital issues, stress, loss, etc.)

5. Humanistic Psychotherapy
Phenomenologists
Behavior is motivated by an innate drive toward growth – therapists help people to self-actualize
People are innately good and possess free will – capable of controlling their own destinies
Clients will improve on their own, given the right conditions
Patients must feel totally accepted and supported – emphasis on relationships

6. Humanistic (con’t) Client-Centered Therapy (Person-Centered Therapy)
Carl Rogers – non-directive therapy - allowed clients to decide what to talk about and when, without judgment or direction – requires active listening
Unconditional positive regard – blanket acceptance for a person
Empathy
Congruence

7. Humanistic (con’t) Gestalt Therapy
Importance of the whole
Frederick Perls – encourage people to get in touch with their whole selves - make people aware of their environment, present feelings, and actions
Gestalt therapy seeks to create conditions in which clients can become more self-aware and self-accepting

8. Behavioral Therapy
Clients see their problems as learned behaviors that can be changed, without searching for hidden meanings or unconscious causes
Based on the work of Watson, Pavlov, & Skinner
Features:
Development of a productive therapist-client relationship
Careful listing of the behaviors and thoughts to be changed – assessment and establishment of goals
Learning-based treatments – giving “homework”
Continuous monitoring and evaluation of treatment

9. Techniques for Modifying Behavior
Counterconditioning
Mary Cover Jones
Systematic Desensitization
Joseph Wolpe
Modeling
Assertiveness and social skills training
Positive reinforcement
Token economy
Extinction
Flooding
Aversive Conditioning
Breaking a habit
Operant Conditioning
Reinforcement/Punishment

10. Cognitive Therapy Focus is on changing unhealthy thought patterns
Rational-emotive behavior therapy – Albert Ellis
Cognitive Restructuring
healthy v. unhealthy attributional style
Aaron Beck – founder of Cognitive Therapy
Most often used in treating depression
Cognitive triad – people’s thoughts about themselves, their worlds, and their futures
Aims to make these beliefs more positive

11. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
CBT – Combines ideas of Cognitive and Behavioral psychologists
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) – Albert Ellis
Therapists look to expose and confront dysfunctional thoughts of their clients
Based on the premise that when we become upset, it is not the events taking place that upset us – it is the beliefs we hold that cause us to become depressed
ABC Model – teaches people how their beliefs cause their emotional and behavioral response

12. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (con’t)
Ellis’ ABC Model
Something happens
You have a belief about that situation
You have an emotional reaction to the belief
For example:
Your employer falsely accuses you of taking money from the register and threatens to fire you
You believe, “She has no right to accuse me! What a jerk!”
You feel angry
***B causes C

13. Group, Family, and Couples Therapy
Group Therapy – simultaneous treatment of several clients – no single theoretical approach used
Advantages – allows interaction among clients, clients feel less alone (raised expectation for improvement), clients boost each other’s confidence, clients are more willing to share
Anti-addiction groups
Family & Couples Therapy – treatment of two or more from same family system – goal is to create harmony and balance
Developed from psychodynamic theory – disorders are rooted in family conflicts

14. Biological Treatments (Somatic Therapy)
Somatic therapies – therapies that produce bodily changes
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) – “shock treatment” – used for depressive patients who didn’t respond to medication
Early use – physicians passed electric currents through brains of people with schizophrenia
Modern use – shock is applied to one side of the brain at a time – used to treat patients with severe depression, who do not respond well to medication
Improves neurotransmitter functions?
Controversial
Psychosurgery – destruction of brain tissue for treating mental disorders
Prefrontal lobotomy – severs neural connection between the prefrontal cortex and the rest of the brain

15. Biological Treatments Psychoactive Drugs
Neuroleptics (Antipsychotics)– reduce psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, & disordered thinking (Schizophrenia)
Block receptor sites for dopamine
Thorazine, Haldol

16. Biological Treatments Psychoactive Drugs (con’t)
Antidepressants – help relieve symptoms of depression – immediate effect on neurotransmitters (usually increasing serotonin or norepinephrine)
Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAO-I) – treats panic disorder
Tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) – more effective in treating panic disorder
Prozac – affects serotonin – most prescribed in the U.S. – also used for panic disorder and OCD
Effexor, Serzone, Wellbutrin

17. Antidepressants

18. Biological Treatments Psychoactive Drugs (con’t)
Lithium – mineral salt found to reduce frequency and intensity of manic and depressive phases of bipolar patients
Anticonvulsants – treats mania
Depakote
Anxiolytics (tranquilizers) – treats anxiety – most widely prescribed and used of all legal drugs
Xanax, Klonopin, Prozac, Paxil, Anafranil, Luvox, Zoloft

19. Evaluating Psychoactive Drug Treatments
Limitations –
Drugs may cover up the problem without permanently curing it
Relieve symptoms without addressing underlying causes
Drug abuse – physical and psychological dependence
Side effects