AP Psychology Module 70-73

Psychotherapy

Treatment involving psychological techniques to help someone overcome difficulties or achieve personal growth.

Biomedical Therapy

Prescribed medications or medical procedures that act directly on the patient’s nervous system.

Eclectic Approach

An approach to psychotherapy that uses techniques from various forms of therapy depending on the client’s problems.

Psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud’s therapeutic technique that aims to bring repressed thoughts into conscious awareness through free association and interpretation.

Resistance

In psychoanalysis, the blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material.

Interpret

In psychoanalysis, the therapist’s explanation of underlying meanings in dreams, resistances, and other behaviors.

Transferring

In psychoanalysis, the patient’s transfer of emotions linked with other relationships onto the therapist.

Psychodynamic Therapists

Therapists who focus on unconscious forces and childhood experiences to enhance self-insight.

Client-Centered Therapy

A humanistic therapy developed by Carl Rogers, in which the therapist provides an empathetic, accepting environment.

Active Listening

Empathic listening in which the listener echoes, restates, and clarifies.

Unconditional Positive Regard

A caring, accepting, nonjudgmental attitude that helps clients develop self-awareness and self-acceptance.

Behavior Therapy

Therapy that applies learning principles to eliminate unwanted behaviors.

Counterconditioning

A behavior therapy procedure that uses classical conditioning to evoke new responses to stimuli that trigger unwanted behaviors.

Exposure Therapies

Behavioral techniques that treat anxieties by exposing people to the things they fear and avoid.

Systematic Desensitization

A type of exposure therapy that associates a relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli.

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy

A treatment that progressively exposes people to simulations of their fears.

Aversive Conditioning

A type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state with an unwanted behavior.

Token Economy

An operant conditioning procedure in which people earn tokens for desired behaviors, which can later be exchanged for rewards.

Cognitive Therapies

Therapies that teach people new, more adaptive ways of thinking.

Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy

A confrontational cognitive therapy that challenges people’s self-defeating attitudes.

Cognitive-Behavior Therapy

A therapy that combines cognitive therapy with behavior therapy.

Family Therapy

Therapy that treats the family as a system and views an individual’s issues as influenced by or directed at family members.

Regression Toward the Mean

The tendency for extreme scores or behaviors to return to average over time.

Meta-analysis

A statistical procedure that combines the results of multiple studies to reach overall conclusions.

Evidence-Based Practice

Clinical decision-making that integrates the best available research with clinical expertise and patient preferences.

Light Exposure Therapy

A treatment for seasonal depression that involves daily exposure to bright light.

Therapeutic Alliance

A bond of trust and mutual understanding between a therapist and client, crucial for successful therapy.

Psychopharmacology

The study of drug effects on mind and behavior.

Antipsychotic Drugs

Medications used to treat schizophrenia and other severe thought disorders.

Antianxiety Drugs

Drugs used to control anxiety and agitation.

Antidepressant Drugs

Medications used to treat depression, anxiety disorders, OCD, and PTSD by altering neurotransmitter levels.

Lithium

A mood-stabilizing drug commonly used to treat bipolar disorder.

Tardive Dyskinesia

A possible side effect of long-term use of antipsychotic drugs, involving involuntary facial and body movements.

Electroconvulsive Therapy

A biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients involving electric shocks to the brain.

Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS)

A therapy that uses repeated magnetic pulses to stimulate or suppress brain activity.

Psychosurgery

Surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue in an attempt to change behavior.

Lobotomy

A psychosurgical procedure that was once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients by severing frontal lobe connections.

Resilience

The ability to cope with stress and recover from adversity.

Posttraumatic Growth

Positive psychological changes as a result of struggling with extremely challenging circumstances.