Therapies Flashcards
Electroshock Therapy
Mostly used in mental institutions for treatment of psychosis and severe depression.
70-160 volts for 0.1-0.5 seconds.
Now it is only used for severely disturbed patients who do not respond to milder form of treatment.
Speculated benefits: increases availability of certain neurotransmitters, cortical orgasm, placebo effect
Adverse effects: Memory loss, brain damage
Psychosurgery
Prefrontal lobotomy to detach the connections between prefrontal cortex and rest of the brain
After surgery people found to be dull, apathetic, sometimes unable to care for themselves.
Psychoanalysis
Abnormal behaviour occurs when defense mechanisms require the use of psychic energy to a great degree that distorts reality and therefore people’s functioning.
Aim of analysis is to reduce anxiety by developing insight (deep understanding of repressed feelings and conflict). By bringing unconscious conflicts to the surface they can be resolved in a safe space.
Dream analysis: Defense mechanisms relax a little during sleep, so repressed urges come up in a disguised form. Analysing dreams gives clues to repressed emotions.
Free association: Individual is encouraged to let thoughts run free and report them without censorship. Unexpected thoughts, memory lapses or recollection give analyst clues of patient’s repressed emotions.
Individual must feel emotions to release them safely, anxiety reduced.
Methods of interference in psychoanalysis
Resistance: Efforts to evade facing conflicts by denying analysts’s interpretation, withholding info and failing to remember.
Transference: Patient’s feelings and attitudes towards people outside analysis resurface in their relationship with the analyst. Positive & negative transference.
Countertransference: When analyst’s feelings and attitudes towards people outside analysis resurface in their relationship with the patient.
Analysis therapy
Used by Jung
Believed that as long as individual’s intuitive feeling parts were hidden away, person could not become a fully functioning balanced individual.
Word association & dream analysis to bring up thee parts to be accepted by individual.
Client centered therapy
Used by Rogers
Believed that client is naturally motivated to become self actualized but is sometimes stuck because they are out of touch with themselves or others.
Unconditional positive regard & empathy
Client shapes the process of therapy. Therapist simply provides the environment that supports client own pursuit of wholeness.
Therapist to be genuine
Gestalt therapy
Designed to make people whole by shedding their defenses, accept responsibility, unlock potential by focussing on present. Emphasis of staying with feelings in the current moment.
Empty chair process
Usage of first person language or phrases like ‘I take responsibility for…’
Existential therapy
Viktor Frankl & Rollo May
Emphasis to make clients realize that they have a choice and can control their fate
Paradoxical intention: When the clients are encouraged to exaggerate their problems to show them that they can have control over the behaviours and therefore overcome problems
Clients see that their problems come from their own free choice and they can choose better ways of coping.
Behavioural therapies
Believe that clients maladaptive patterns are reinforced behaviours; and are suffering from acquired patterns that are psychologically costly
Emphasis on behaviour measurement and change
Behaviours persist because they are rewarded in some way and can be reduced if they are made less rewarding
Operant conditioning methods
Working with clients to create rewarding contingencies to maintain desired behavior and eliminate undesired one.
Find the antecedent, behaviour & consequence
Extinction Differential reinforcement Shaping Token economy Punishment Covert sensitization
ABC in functional analysis of behavior
Antecedent - cues that signal reward when behaviour is performed
Behavior
Consequence is the reward
Eg: smoking when stressed Stressful situation (antecedent) makes you smoke (behaviour) to feel relaxed (consequence)
Extinction
Occurs when the reinforcement stops so behaviour ceases.
Eg: Person keep scratching skin to get attention from others. Attention stops. Scratching stops.
Omission training: A place this is safe but kept uninteresting leading to a reduction in positive reinforcement. Time out rooms. Inappropriate behavior stops to avoid reduction of reinforcers.
Differential reinforcement
Giving positive reinforcers when desired behaviour is displayed and withdrawing in absence of behaviour.
Shaping
Use of prompts and successive approximations to nurture correct responses.
Eg: a child learns to pull itself up, to stand, to walk and to finally move about through reinforcement of slightly exceptional instances of behaviors.
Token economy
Win tokens that can be exchanged for desired products like a better meal or games, etc.
Sometimes brings up the practical (behavior stops when tokens stop) and ethical (is this humane) issues
Covert sensitization
Type of instrumental conditioning technique - Unwanted behavior is imagined along with imaginary punishment consequence. Can be used anytime and anywhere.
Eg: Alcoholic made to image drinking and then throwing up.
Used to treat smoking, gambling, overeating, etc.
Classical conditioning techniques
Systematic desensitization
Flooding
Aversion therapy
Systematic desensitization
Relaxed and pleasant feelings are learned as conditioned responses to stimuli that was one fear producing
Principle of reciprocal inhibition where two incompatible responses cannot coexist and so the stronger one replaces the weaker
Autogenic training: individual made to focus on specific parts of body with mental images like warmth and light
Tense and relax muscles to feel the relaxation
Therapist begins with pairing relaxation with very weak levels of fear and then increasing fear intensity
Flooding
Direct presentation of fear inducing stimulus repeatedly in imagination or reality.
Principle that repeated exposure to stimulus in absence of adverse unconditional stimulus will reduce the classically conditioned fear response.
Aversion therapy
Objective is not to undo feelings of aversion but induce them in the presence of stimulus to reduce behaviour.
Eg: Alcoholics given a drug that induces nausea and then told to smell their favourite drink.
Con: Conditioned response usually extinguishes unless conditioning sessions are repeated frequently.
Rational-Emotive Therapy
Designed the break down and reveal irrational beliefs that cause distress.
Probe into client’s behavior and beliefs that may be held for years.
Beck’s cognitive therapy
Using friendly questioning to bring out fault cognition in client. Usually used to treat depression.
Homework where individual is encouraged to engage in rewarding activities
Self-Instructional Training
Replacing maladaptive cognitions with positive rational statements, especially in a stressful situation
Positive “self-talk”
Therapy for groups
Family therapy - treating the entire family as the patient since disturbed behavior from one member could be worsened by behavior of other members. Behavior exchange where behavior each member would like to see in other is pinpointed as used to enhance well-being.
Group therapy - For those who are not seriously distressed, but wish to gain insight or sensitivity through structured interaction. Group leaders to be skilled in different interpersonal problems and sensitive to emotions of each individual.
