Chapter 17
Therapy
Disorders
Psychologist view disorders as something
that is biologically influenced,
unconsciously motivated, and difficult to
change
Freud believed that generalized anxiety
disorder was a “free floating” disorder.
In other words, it’s not associated with a
particular object, it can attack at any time
Depression
Most common disorder, sometimes
considered the “common cold” of
disorders
Most prevalent among women
Associated with low levels of serotonin
Often triggered by a stressful event
Therapy
Psychotherapy
• an emotionally charged, confiding interaction
between a trained therapist and someone
who suffers from psychological difficulties
Eclectic Approach
• an approach to psychotherapy that,
depending on the client’s problems, uses
techniques from various forms of therapy
Have a little bit of everything
TherapyPsychoanalysis
Resistance
• blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden
material
This can be a problem with some dissociative
personality disorders, like dissociate fugue or
dissociate identity disorder.
Therapy approaches to
breaking through resistance
Hypnosis
Interpretation
•
the analyst’s noting supposed dream
meanings, resistances, and other significant
behaviors in order to promote insight
Transference
•
the patient’s transfer to the analyst of
emotions linked with other relationships
-e.g. love or hatred for a parent
Humanistic Therapy
Client-Centered Therapy (Client-Based therapy)
• humanistic therapy developed by Carl Rogers
• therapist uses techniques such as active listening
within a genuine, accepting, empathic environment
to facilitate clients’ growth
Behavior Therapy
Behavior Therapy
• therapy that applies learning principles to the
elimination of unwanted behaviors
Counterconditioning
• procedure that conditions new responses to
stimuli that trigger behaviors
• based on classical conditioning
• includes systematic desensitization and
aversive conditioning
Systematic Desensitization
• type of counterconditioning
• associates a pleasant, relaxed state with
gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli
• commonly used to treat phobias
Exposure therapy (flooding)Similar to systematic desensitization in that
the psychologist teaches the patient how
to get into a calm and relaxed state.
OPPOSITE from systematic desensitization
though in that the patient is not slowly
introduced to their fear, but directly
introduced to it in it’s fullest extent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfI_lVlm
mg0&feature=relmfu
Virtual reality exposure therapyExposure therapy that is conducted from
the safety of a computerized atmosphere.
Aversive Conditioning
• type of counterconditioning that associates an
unpleasant state with an unwanted behavior
• nausea ---> alcohol
UCS
(drug)
UCR
(nausea)
CS
(alcohol)
UCS
(drug)
UCR
(nausea)
CS
(alcohol)
CR
(nausea)
Aversion therapy video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lc8rtjxG
-eI
Behavior Therapy
Token Economy
• an operant conditioning procedure
that rewards desired behavior
• patient exchanges a token of some
sort, earned for exhibiting the
desired behavior, for various
privileges or treats
Cognitive Therapy
Cognitive Therapy
• teaches people new,
more adaptive ways of
thinking and acting
• based on the
assumption that
thoughts intervene
between events and
our emotional
reactions
Cognitive Therapy
Lost job
Internal beliefs:
I’m worthless.
It’s hopeless.
Depression
Lost job
A cognitive
perspective
on
psychological
disorders
Internal beliefs:
My boss is a jerk.
I deserve something better.
No
depression
Cognitive Therapy
The
Cognitive
Revolution
Cognitive Therapy
Depression
scores
30
25
Cognitive
therapy for
depression
Waiting list
patients
20
15
10
Cognitive
training patients
Cognitive training
patients much
less depressed
5
0
Pre-therapy
test
Post-therapy
test
Cognitive Therapy
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
• a popular integrated therapy that
combines cognitive therapy
(changing self-defeating thinking)
with behavior therapy (changing
behavior)
Group Therapies
Family Therapy
• treats the family as a system
• views an individual’s unwanted behaviors as
influenced by or directed at other family members
• attempts to guide family members toward positive
relationships and improved communication
Does Therapy Work?
Meta-analysis
• procedure for statistically combining the
results of many different research studies
Number of
persons
Average
untreated
person
Poor outcome
80% of untreated people have poorer
outcomes than average treated person
Average
psychotherapy
client
Good outcome
Who Does Therapy?
To whom do
people turn
for help for
psychological
difficulties?
Biomedical Therapies
Psychopharmacology
• study of the effects of drugs on mind and
behavior
Benzodiazepine
• Anti-anxiety medication used for many
disorders, including GAD and
schizophrenia
Lithium
• chemical that provides an effective drug
therapy for the mood swings of bipolar
(manic-depressive) disorders
Simpsons clip
Can you see what kind of biomedical
therapy Dr. Marvin Monroe is using?
Biomedical Therapies
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)
• therapy for severely depressed patients in
which a brief electric current is sent through
the brain of an anesthetized patient
Psychosurgery
• surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue
in an effort to change behavior
• lobotomy
now-rare psychosurgical procedure once
used to calm uncontrollably emotional or
violent patients
Biomedical Therapies
Electroconvulsive Therapy
Biomedical Therapies
The emptying of U.S. mental hospitals
State and county
mental hospital 700
residents, in 600
thousands
500
Introduction of antipsychotic drugs
Rapid decline
in the mental
hospital
population
400
300
200
100
0
1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990
Year