Defining Psychotherapy
“…the informed and intentional application of clinical methods and interpersonal stances derived from established psychological principles for the purpose of assisting people to modify their behaviors, cognitions, emotions, and/or other personal characteristics in directions that the participants deem desirable.”
Many specific theories, many common factors
SUMMARY
Expectation
By seeking help, one will change (you want to create optimism to the client)
Therapeutic relationship/alliance
Important, but varies according to theory (behaviorism < cognitive < CBT < psychoanalytic)
Hawthorne effect
Improvement as a result of receiving attention
6 types of psycotherapy?
Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic
Analysis: Long-term therapy
Multiple meetings/week, usually over several years
Shorter, time-limited dynamic therapy focuses
on the present
Used to treat:
Depression
Anxiety
Some personality disorders
interpersonal?
Based on idea that problematic attachments early in life predispose one to develop disorders that are expressed through troubled interpersonal relationships in present
4 main major interpersonal problems?
compared to psychodyamic interpersonal is
short term (12-16 sessions) and focus on relationship
family systems?
based on the idea that an identified patient reflects a dysfunction in the whole family system (The assumption is that the child is NOT a identified pt, the entire system is the identified pt.) –> the aim is to improve the family’s relationship
Group Therapies
Behavioral therapy
Behavioral therapy is
Used to treat:
unconditioned stimulus means
automatic, no need to teach
the process of conditioning is
to turn the neutral stimulus (Tone) –> conditioned stimulus
changes over time in the strength of the conditioned response
some applications of classical conditioning
can lead to the development of intense, irrational fears of objects or situations (eg - phobias)
what is stimulus discrimination?
Stimulus discrimination: An organism learns to differentiate among similar stimuli
- Complementary process to stimulus generalization
Some Applications of Classical Conditioning