APPROACHES IN PRACTICE
In this activity you will explore the contemporary approaches
used to understand, treat, and prevent psychological disorders.
Although psychologists may blend concepts from more than
one approach, each approach represents a distinct view of the
central issues in psychology.
To begin, you will learn about these approaches and their
unique perspectives on human nature and psychological
disturbance. Then, you will put each into practice for a
common psychological disorder.
Let’s begin by exploring the different approaches.
Contemporary psychological perspectives can be divided into
two areas:
1. biological approaches look at physiological factors
2. psychological approaches look at mental, behavioral,
and social factors
Biological Approaches target the "hardware," the body's
mechanisms that control the central nervous system,
endocrine system, and metabolism. Biological approaches
assume that many psychological disorders stem from
underlying biological causes, such as structural abnormalities
in the brain, biochemical processes, and genetics.
Biological Treatments attempt to alter brain functioning with
chemical or physical interventions, including drugs that act
directly on the brain and body, surgery, and electroconvulsive
therapy. Conducted by psychiatrists, physicians, and surgeons,
biological treatments, also known as biomedical therapies,
include the following practices.
Psychopharmacology:
• Therapy that incorporates drugs and chemicals; includes
three major types of drugs: anti-psychotic, anti-depressant,
and anti-anxiety
Biomedical Psychosurgery:
• Surgical procedures on brain tissue to alleviate
psychological disorders
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT):
• A brief electrical current applied to a patient's temples to
alter the brain's chemical and electrical activity
Next, we will explore the psychological approaches.
Psychological Approaches target the "software," learned
faulty behaviors and habits, along with damaging words,
thoughts, interpretations, and feedback that direct strategies
for daily living. Psychological approaches assume that many
disorders result from mental, behavioral, and social factors,
such as personal experiences, traumas, conflicts, and
environmental conditions.
Psychological Treatments attempt to change behaviors,
thoughts, and thought processes that impair daily living,
thereby improving functioning. Practiced by clinical
psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and counselors,
psychological treatments include four types of psychotherapy.
Psychodynamic Therapy
• View: Problems are symptoms of unresolved traumas and
conflicts
• Focus: Inner, often unconscious motivations as well as
attempts to resolve conflicts between personal needs and
social requirements
• Approach: By understanding and making more conscious
the relationships between overt problems and the
unresolved, internal conflicts that caused them, people can
work through problems to reach an effective solution
Behaviorial Therapy
• View: Problems are the result of learned, self-defeating
behaviors
• Focus: Observable behavior and conditions that sustain
unhealthy behavior
• Approach: By applying the principles of conditioning and
reinforcement, people can learn healthy behaviors
Cognitive Therapy
• View: Problems are the result of what we think (cognitive
content) and how we think (cognitive process), including
distorted view of situations and self, faulty reasoning, and
poor problem solving
• Focus: Thoughts and thought processes that cause
problematic emotions and behaviors
• Approach: By reconfiguring damaging thinking patterns,
people can learn healthy, realistic ways of thinking about life
experiences
Existential/Humanistic Therapy
• View: Problems are the result of issues related to difficulties
in daily life, especially a lack of both meaningful
relationships and significant goals
• Focus: Ways to unite mind and body, that is, the whole
person, and thus release the potential for greater levels of
performance and greater richness of experience
• Approach: By examining experiences in current life
situations, people can develop their individuality and learn
how to realize their full potential
APPROACHES IN PRACTICE
Let’s put the information we just learned to practice.
Patient A has been diagnosed with alcohol
dependence or alcoholism. Alcoholism may be
treated as a substance dependence disorder
characterized by behavior patterns resulting
from uncontrolled use of alcohol and continued,
or even increased, use, often despite awareness
that the substance is disrupting one's life.
Take a BIOLOGICAL approach:
Question 1: What might be a potential cause of A's
alcoholism?
a. family history of alcoholism and a genetic
predisposition to addiction
b. repressed biological instincts
c. behavior patterns learned from watching
others drink
d. a need to suppress feelings about A's own
failures
Question 2: What might you examine to better
understand A's alcoholism?
a. tactics A uses to hide drinking behaviors
b. A's dreams and unconscious fantasies about
drinking
c. A's thoughts and thought processes that lead
to drinking behaviors
d. parts of A's brain that are involved in
addiction
Question 3: Which treatment would you prescribe
for A?
a. individual psychotherapy that focuses on A's
family history of alcoholism
b. group therapy with other alcoholics
c. psychotropic medication that curbs cravings
d. individual therapy that rewards A for
abstinence
Take a PSYCHODYNAMIC approach:
Question 1: What might be a potential cause of A's
alcoholism?
a. faulty neurotransmitters in A's brain
b. unconscious conflicts that are manifested in
drinking behaviors
c. thoughts and feelings of being a failure
d. heartbreak from a relationship that recently
ended
Question 2: What might you examine to better
understand A's alcoholism?
a. if drinking keeps difficult feelings out of A's
awareness
b. if A's drinking only becomes a problem after a
certain number of drinks
c. if A drinks alone or with others
d. if drinking hinders A's long-term memory
Question 3: Which treatment might you prescribe
for A?
a. subliminal suggestion into A's psyche of new,
unpleasant associations with drinking
b. art therapy that encourages creative
expressions of interpersonal conflicts
c. therapy to help A gain insight into difficult
feelings and memories that fuel drinking
behaviors
d. surgery on the part of A's brain that oversees
repression
Take a BEHAVIORAL approach:
Question 1: What might be a potential cause of A's
alcoholism?
a. metabolic problems related to the absorption
of alcohol
b. learned behaviors around drinking
c. an inability to think through the
consequences of drinking
d. a distorted attitude about the impact of
drinking behavior
APPROACHES IN PRACTICE
Question 2: What might you examine to better
understand A's alcoholism?
a. A's dreams
b. A's irrational beliefs that fuel drinking
behaviors
c. A's drinking behaviors that have been
reinforced over time
d. A's cultural background and its views on
drinking
Question 3: Which treatment might you prescribe
for A?
a. strategies to increase A's healthy behaviors
while decreasing unhealthy drinking
behaviors
b. a journal in which A tracks feelings for the
therapist that develop over the course of
treatment
c. long-term therapy to help A release difficult
feelings and thoughts
d. medication to decrease anxiety and its
resultant drinking behaviors
Take a COGNITIVE approach:
Question 1: What might be a potential cause of A's
alcoholism?
a. lack of problem-solving skills and inability to
think through consequences of drinking
b. early sibling rivalry
c. low levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine
in A's brain
d. lack of goals in daily life
Question 2: What might you examine to better
understand A's alcoholism?
a. A's early oral experiences and how they
relate to current oral behaviors
b. A's relationship with her or his parents and if
they are responsible for A's alcoholism
c. A's thoughts and thoughts processes that lead
to drinking behaviors
d. the part of A's brain that is responsible for
drinking and swallowing
Question 3: Which treatment might you prescribe
for A?
a. change A's negative self-statements into
constructive coping mechanisms
b. therapy in which A talks freely about
whatever comes to mind
c. replace A's drinking behaviors with a new,
but less destructive, addiction
d. hide A's car keys for duration of the
treatment
Take an existential/HUMANISTIC approach:
Question 1: What might be a potential cause of A's
alcoholism?
a.
b.
c.
d.
inability to resist peer pressure to drink
lack of healthy personal relationships
addictive personality
poor diet that increases alcohol cravings
Question 2: What might you examine to better
understand A's alcoholism?
a. A's childhood traumas
b. the onset of A's drinking
c. environmental influences that might lead A to
drink
d. A's unexpressed feelings that interfere with
psychological well-being
Question 3: Which treatment might you prescribe
for A?
a. electroconvulsive therapy that stimulates the
parts of A's brain involved in addiction
b. therapy that involves listening, reflecting, and
sometimes restating A's evaluative
statements and feelings
c. therapy that requires A to end relationships
that interfere with her or his well-being
d. behavioral goals for A to achieve over the
course of treatment
SOURCE:
http://www.learner.org/discoveringpsychology/therapeutic/index.html