Treatment of Psych Disorders Today’s mental health therapies can be classified into 2 main categories & the preferred treatment depends on both disorder & therapists’ viewpoint: 1.Psychotherapy: best suited for learning-related disorders (i.e.: phobias) – trained therapist uses psychological techniques to assist someone seeking to overcome difficulties or achieve personal growth. 2.Biomedical Therapy: best suited for biologically influenced disorders (i.e.: schizophrenia) – a prescribed medication/medical procedure that acts directly on the patient’s nervous system. *Many patients receive drug therapy in combo w/ psychotherapy. ½ of all psychotherapists use an eclectic approach – using a blend of therapies. Psychotherapy integration attempts to combine assorted techniques into a singe, coherent system.

The Psychological Therapies Among the dozens of types of psychotherapy, we’ll only look at the most influential: Psychoanalysis (Freudian): –Therapeutic technique used by Freud who believed the patient’s free associations, resistances, dreams (latent content) & transferences - & the therapist’s interpretations of them- released previously repressed feelings, allowing the patient to gain self-insight. –Therapist is traditionally out of sight of patient. –Traditional psychoanalysis takes time, up to several years & several sessions a week & it is $$$! (3x/wk for 2 $100+/hr. = $30,000); outside of France, Germany, Quebec & NYC, few therapists offer it.

Psychodynamic Therapy: –Derived from the psychoanalytic tradition that views people as responding to unconscious forces & childhood experiences, & that seeks to enhance self-insight. –The therapist tries to get patient to look for common, recurring themes, esp. in relationships. –Therapists talk to patient face-to-face. –Meet once a week for a few weeks or months.

Humanistic Therapy: –Seek to boost self-fulfillment by helping people grow in self-awareness & self-acceptance; attempt to reduce the inner conflicts that impede natural dev. growth by providing clients w/ new insights. –Often referred to as insight therapies-aim to improve psych functioning by increasing the client’s awareness of underlying motives & defenses. –Rogers developed client-centered therapy-widely used; therapist uses techniques such as active listening w/in a genuine, accepting, empathic enviro to facilitate clients’ growth.

Behavior Therapies: –Applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors. –They assume that problem behaviors are the problems. –Rather than delving deeply below the surface looking for inner causes, behavior therapists view maladaptive symptoms-such as phobias or other anxiety disorders-as learned behaviors that can be replaced by constructive behaviors.

Classical Conditioning Techniques: {Behavioral Therapy} –Cluster of behavior therapies deriving from classical conditioning principles; Could maladaptive symptoms be examples of conditioned responses? If so, might reconditioning be a solution? Counterconditioning: behavior therapy procedure that uses classical conditioning to evoke new responses to stimuli that’re triggering unwanted behaviors; includes exposure therapies & aversive conditioning. –Exposure Therapies: behavioral techniques, such as systemic desensitization, that treat anxieties by exposing people (in imagination/actuality) to the things they fear & avoid. »Systematic Desensitization: type of exposure therapy associates a pleasant relaxed state w/ gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli; Commonly used to treat phobias. –Aversive Conditioning: type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state (nausea) w/ an unwanted behavior (drinking alcohol)

Operant Conditioning: –Behavior therapists can practice behavior modification- reinforcing desired behaviors & withholding reinforcement or enacting punishment for undesired behaviors. –Using operant cond. to solve specific behavior problems has raised hopes for some otherwise hopeless cases; token economy Children w/ an intellectual disability have been taught to care for themselves; Autistic children have been taught to interact; Patients w/ schiz. have been helped to behave more rationally in their hospital wards. In such cases, therapists use positive reinforcers to shape behavior in a step-by-step manner, rewarding closer & closer approximations of the desired behavior.

Cognitive Therapies: –Teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking & acting; based on the assumption that thoughts intervene btwn events & our emotional reactions – our thoughts color our feelings Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: –Popular integrative therapy that combines cognitive therapy (changing self-defeating thinking) with behavior therapy (changing behavior).

Group & Family Therapies: –Group therapy saves therapists’ time & clients’ money - & often no less effective than individual therapy; –For up to 90 min/week, therapist guides interactions of a group of people as they engage issues & react to one another. –Social context allows people both to discover that others have problems similar to their own & to receive feedback as they try out new ways of behaving. –Family therapy treats the family as a system; views an individual’s unwanted behaviors as influenced by, or directed at, other family members.