Psychological Therapies

Psychotherapy An emotionally charged, confiding interaction between a trained therapist and someone who suffers from psychological difficulties 4 Major approaches ▫Psychoanalytic ▫Humanistic ▫Behavioral ▫Cognitive

Psychoanalytic Freud – pull the problem from the unconscious to the conscious to relieve them ▫Free association  Resistance – not sharing anxious situations  Interpretation – therapists ideas behind dreams, resistant, and other behaviors  Latent content – censored meaning of dreams  Transference – put the feeling from the anxious situation to the therapist  Repressed memories don’t exist  $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $  The analyst makes up the answers ▫Psychodynamic – related to psychoanalysis  Weekly meetings for a few months ▫Interpersonal Psychotherapy  sessions with focus on the patients life NOW  Current relationships can be mended and social skills improved

Humanistic Growth not relieving problems ▫Focus on present and future with emphasis on conscious thoughts Non-direct ▫No interpretation of patients Carl Rogers ▫Client centered therapy  Active listening, empathy, acceptance, and genuiness  Paraphrasing, clarifying, and reflecting feelings  By mirroring the client sees themselves as better  Unconditional Positive Regard helps the client feel accepted ▫PROBLEM?

Behavior Therapies Classical Conditioning ▫Counterconditioning  1. Systematic Desensitization  Associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety- triggering stimuli ▫Commonly used to treat phobias ▫1-Hierarchy of fears ▫2-Progressive relaxation ▫3-Work through the fears to keep relaxed state  2. Aversion Conditioning  Replaces a positive response with a negative response

Cont. Operant Conditioning ▫Token Economy  1. Rewards behavior with some kind of token  Lock-down facilities, school, hospitals, etc.  2. Move from tokens – internal rewards  3. Ethics – Deprivation of something

Cognitive Therapies Teach people new, more adaptive ways of thinking and acting; based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and out emotional reactions ▫Think constructively ▫Journaling only positive things

Cognitive Therapy