Methods of Therapy
History of Therapies
Asylums:
Originated in European monasteries, they were the first institutions intended primarily for housing people with Psychological disorders with no intentions of actually helping the individuals. Many patients were beatened, chained, whipped, and left to lie in waste.
Mental Hospitals:
In the United States, Mental hospitals replaced asylums. The mental hospitals function was to treat patients not store them. Due to high populations and understaffing many patients were still left unattended.
Community Mental Health Centers:
Allows patients to remain in their communities while getting the care they need.
Psychotherapy
A verbal form of therapy derived from a psychological framework that consists of one or more treatment sessions with a therapist.
Psychodynamic therapies share in common the belief that psychological problems are rooted in unconscious psychological conflicts dating from childhood. They also assume that gaining insight into these conflicts and working through them in the light of the individual’s adult personality are the key steps toward restoring psychological health
psychoanalysis: Freud’s method of psychotherapy; it focuses on uncovering and working through the unconscious conflicts that he believed were at the root of psychological problems.
psychoanalysts: Practitioners of psychoanalysis who are schooled in the Freudian tradition.
free association: A technique in psychoanalysis in which the client is encouraged to say anything that comes to mind.
dream analysis: A technique in psychoanalysis in which the therapist analyzes the underlying or symbolic meaning of the client’s dreams.
interpretation: In psychoanalysis, the therapist’s attempt to explain connections between what the client discloses during therapy and his or her unconscious conflicts.
insight: In Freudian theory, the realization or awareness of underlying unconscious wishes and conflicts.
resistance: In psychoanalysis, the blocking that occurs when therapy touches upon anxiety-evoking thoughts or feelings.
Transference: responding to one person in a way similar to how one responded to another person in childhood.
transference relationship: The tendency of clients to reenact earlier conflicted relationships in their lives in the relationships they develop with their therapists.
countertransference: The tendency for therapists to relate to clients in ways that mirror the relationships they’ve had with important figures in their own lives.
catharsis: in psychoanalysis, the expression of repressed feelings and impulses to allow the release of the psychic energy associated with them
Wish fulfillment: in dreams, the acting out of ideas and impulses that are repressed when one is conscious
Humanistic Therapies
A form of psychotherapy that focuses on the client's subjective, conscious experience in the "here and Now"
Client-Centered Therapy also called, person-centered therapy:
Carl Rogers believed that for therapists to be effective, they must demonstrate empathy and unconditional positive regard for their clients as well as genuineness in their expression of feelings.
effective therapist traits:
Gestalt Therapy:
Fritz Perls's form of psychotherapy, which attempts to integrate conflicting parts of the personality through directive methods designed to help clients perceive their whole selves.
Behavior therapy
Behavioral therapies (also called behavior modification) are based on the theories of classical and operant conditioning. The premise is that all behavior is learned; faulty learning is the cause of abnormal behavior. Therefore the individual has to learn the correct or acceptable behavior.
Types of Behavior Therapies:
Flooding (also known as implosion therapy) works by exposing the patient directly to their worst fears.
Aversion Therapy: This process pairs undesirable behavior with some form of aversive stimulus with the aim of reducing unwanted behavior.
Systematic desensitization is a type of behavioral therapy based on the principle of classical conditioning. This therapy aims to remove the fear response of a phobia, and substitute a relaxation response to the conditional stimulus gradually using counter conditioning.
Token economy is a system in which targeted behaviors are reinforced with tokens (secondary reinforcers) and later exchanged for rewards (primary reinforcers).
gradual exposure: A behavior therapy technique for treating phobias based on direct exposure to a series of increasingly fearful stimuli. Also called in-vivo (“real-life”) exposure.
virtual reality therapy: A form of exposure therapy in which virtual reality is used to simulate real-world environments.
aversive conditioning: A form of behavior therapy in which stimuli associated with undesirable behavior are paired with aversive stimuli to create a negative response to these stimuli.
modeling: A behavior therapy technique for overcoming phobias and acquiring more adaptive behaviors, based on observing and imitating models.
cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT): A form of therapy that combines behavioral and cognitive treatment techniques.
Cognitive therapy
Cognitive therapists focus on helping people change how they think. Their techniques are based on the view that distorted or faulty ways of thinking underlie emotional problems as well as self-defeating or maladaptive behavior.
rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT): Developed by Albert Ellis, a form of therapy based on identifying and correcting irrational beliefs that are thought to underlie emotional and behavioral difficulties.
Ellis uses an “ABC” approach to explain the causes of emotional distress. This model can be diagrammed as follows:
Activating event--> Beliefs--> Consequences
Ellis later added a “D” (dispute) to the ABC model by helping clients challenge or dispute their irrational beliefs.
cognitive therapy: Developed by Aaron Beck, a form of therapy that helps clients recognize and correct distorted patterns of thinking associated with negative emotional states.
eclectic therapy: A therapeutic approach that draws upon principles and techniques representing different schools of therapy.
Group Therapies
group therapy: A form of therapy in which clients are treated within a group format.
family therapy: Therapy for troubled families that focuses on changing disruptive patterns of communication and improving the ways in which family members relate to each other.
Self-help and support groups
Biological Therapies
Drug therapy:
rebound anxiety: anxiety that can occur when one discontinues use of a tranquilizer
Electroconvulsive therapy: treatment of disorders like major depression by passing an electric current through the head