The Social Approach Family Therapy

What is Family Therapy? Family Therapy teaches about the disorder and how to deal with the disruption it causes. This helps the family understand the disorder better, and therefore they’ll be able to help the sufferer more. Families have a big affect on each other - in positive and negative ways. So Family Therapy utilises the positive effects to help a family member overcome a disorder. Family Therapy also looks to identify any factors within normal family life that may not be helping the sufferer, such as a certain negative attitude to food being set by a parent.

Evidence Lock and Le Grange found that a treatment manual for Family Therapy can be developed. This means that the treatment can be carried out in uncontrolled and controlled settings, using the manual.

Evaluation Strengths: - An advantage of family therapy, is that it may draw the family closer together, if they help their adolescent to overcome their illness. Weakness: - A weakness could be that the family is forced apart if the treatment is unsuccessful. - If the family do not do what they are told by the therapist, then the treatment may work. And there is no objective way of finding whether the family have done what was required by the therapist.

The Cognitive Approach Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)

What is CBT? CBT focuses on present behaviour and thoughts, not how those developed. The patient's perception of reality has to be accepted by the therapist and then they can use this to help the patient manage. An agenda is set out so that the patient and therapist know and agree on what the aim is for each session. The therapist challenges unusual thoughts in the patient in order to correct their thinking.

Evaluation Strengths: - Chadwick (2000) found that eight hours of CBT reduced how powerful auditory hallucinations experienced by schizophrenics were. - Gould et al found in his meta analysis that antipsychotics were more effective when paired with CBT. Weaknesses: - The maladaptive thoughts of the patient could actually be a consequence rather than a cause. - Narrow thinking – there are many more issues that need to be addressed in treatment than just cognition.

The Psychodynamic Approach Free Association

What is Free Association? Free association is therapy which aims to uncover any unconscious conflicts within the mind, and then help the sufferer to deal with these in a conscious state. Freud was the first therapist to practice Free Association. His patients would sit facing away from him, and he would ask them to talk freely about their current lives, and their memories. Answers to any questions were usually predictable, however, sometimes when talking freely they said something more revealing. Freud thought that this gave him clues as to what was going on in their unconscious.

Evaluation and Evidence Strengths: - Free association is very in depth, and takes all life experiences into account. - Appears to allow access to the unconscious, and therefore interpretation as to what is going on in the unconscious. Weaknesses: - May reinforce obsessions that clients have. - Interpretation is subjective, and therefore

The Biological Approach Chemotherapy

What is Chemotherapy? Chemotherapy is a type of drug treatment that uses antineoplastic drugs to mainly treat cancer. The drugs work by impairing mitosis as cancer is an uncontrolled growth of cells. By impairing mitosis, the cancer cells are stopped from reproducing and spreading. Unfortunately Chemotherapy destroys healthy cells, so patients will often loose their hair, and may become ill easily, as immune system cells are likely to be destroyed as well.

Evaluation Strengths: - Very effective Weaknesses: - Very unpleasant side effects - Chemicals used must be carefully selected based on the type and stage of the cancer.

Token Economy Programmes (TEP’s) The Learning Approach Token Economy Programmes (TEP’s)

What is Token Economy? Token Economy is a reward programme often used in prisons and community based settings. The rewards given are specific to the person, to ensure that they really want it. They are generally seen as a way to control unwanted behaviour rather than a solution to it. Token Economy Programmes can be related to most reward systems put in place by parents to encourage good behaviour.

Evidence Pearson et al (‘02) conducted a meta-analysis to review how effective TEP’s are. In examining the findings of 69 studies, he concluded that behavioural treatments did not work, as it seems that behaviour can only be changed when there is a change in thinking.

Evaluation Strengths: - TEP’s give the sufferer a sense of control over their behaviour and the earned rewards. Weaknesses: - Society does not work on a system of rewards which are as frequent and obvious as in TEP’s. This could mean that the learned behaviour does not generalise to the outside world. - Whether TEP’s work is questionable as improvements in behaviour could be down to other factors. - Pearson et al (2002) reviewed the effectiveness of behavioural techniques such as TEP. The findings were examined and researchers concluded that behavioural therapies did not work.