Approaches to Therapy #1 Flashcards
A science and an art. There are no rules or prescriptions that universally apply to the treatment of all psycholgical disorders, and cannot be likened to threatening physical ailments. Not only the alleviation of suffering, it is also to help people get the most out of life, to foster growth.
Thereaputic Treatments
__ Approach. The Case of Anna O. - Treatment with Breuer. Conversion hysteria - physical symptoms without a physical cause. “Talking Cure” or “Chimney Sweeping” Anna would hallucinate in the morning, describe them to B, then in the evening, he would hypnotize, and repeat them to her. Her symptoms masked repressed traumatic experiences - they could be worked through and released if they were recalled.
Psychoanalytic Approach
____ developed psychoanalysis. Repressed childhood impulses and conflicts are at the heard of adult psychology. Complications in psychosexual development can also lead to this. We can begin to process and heal if we bring these exp/troubles into awareness.
Freud
Freud’s main technique for psychoanalysis. Patient lays on a couch with the therapist behind the patient, patient relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, censoring nothing. The patients could talk for a long time, producing endless experiences of association, but sometimes, there was resistance.
Free association
Freud’s Free Association. Freud noticed an unwillingness to face unpleasant thoughts and memories. On the brink of an important but painful insight, they would stop, lose their train of thought, change the subject etc. This is an unconscious defense mechanism, used to keep threatening insights out of awareness.
Resistance
Freud’s Free Association. Many patients developed amorous feelings for him, and Freud assumed that these feelings were not for him, he was not the intended target for these feelings. Unconscious tendency to – feelings about important others onto therapist.
Transference
Today. Therapists have an appreciation for unconscious association, transference, and resistance. Ways to accelerate the healing process: therapist sits across from the patient, conversational role, asking questions, and spend less time on past emotional traumas and more on current issues and live situations that impact effective functioning today.
Brief Psychoanalytic Therapies
Approach. Dominated from 1910-1960 in America. We don’t care about childhood influences, psychosexual conflicts, and doubt the healing power of self-awarenss. Focus on behavior because it is quantifiable. All behaviors are learned from classic or operant behaviors. Focus on maladaptive behaviors, identify these behaviors and how they were learned then decondition by removing the stimuli that controls these behaviors.
The Behavioral Approach
Behavioral techniques, __ __. Flooding: stimulus presentation without negative consequences, effective for phobias. Putting the person in an environment is unpleasant at first, but the patient will adapt without negative consequences.
Classic conditioning
Behavioral techniques, __ __. Counter-conditioning: The fear and anxiety can be erased by pairing the feared stimulus with a pleasurable activity, teaching the patient to connect the stimulus with happiness. Peter, the cookies, and the rabbit.
Classic conditioning
Behavioral techniques, ___ ___. Systematic desensitization. Joseph Wolpe. Relaxation, hierarchy of fear, exposure. Ask the patients to establish a hierarchy of fear, then discuss each level (picture it) then have them relax and move on to the next. Devon and the Chihuahuas
Classic Conditioning
Behavioral techniques, ___ ___. Aversive conditioning: pair a harmful activity with an aversive stimulus. Pairing alcohol with a drug that makes you throw up, you then pair the alcohol with throwing up.
Classic conditioning
Behavioral techniques, ___. Behavior motivation - reinforcing desired behaviors. Schizophrenic: wears 25 pounds of clothing, you can go into the dining room to eat if you take off clothes, but you can’t if you don’t. Token economies, patient receives a gold star that can be cashed in for candy, tv, books, or weekend privileges when they do what they want.
Operant conditioning
Approach. Cognitions shape our behavioral and emotional responses to events. If patients change their maladaptive thoughts and cognitions, then their maladaptive behaviors will change.
The Cognitive Approach
The Cognitive Approach. REBT, Ellis. We have power over our emotional destinies. We have this power because of our cognitive abilities: thoughts are the most powerful determinant of our feelings. A (activating event) –> B (beliefs) –> C (consequence of behavior)
Rational emotive behavior therapy.
