Psychotherapy, Biological Treatments, and Ethical Principles in Psychology

Psychotherapy

Emotionally charged, confiding interaction between a trained therapist and someone who suffers from psychological difficulties.

Therapeutic alliance

Relationship between client and therapist that is caring, genuine, understanding, and empathetic.

Positive expectations

Client begins to believe that the therapeutic process will result in positive outcomes.

Specific and evidence-based action plan

Therapist prescribes a plan of action and the client uses it to form a sense of self-efficacy based on new coping behaviors.

Nonmaleficence

Avoid harm or injury to others.

Fidelity

Loyal and faithful.

Integrity

Honest and follow moral principles.

Respect for people's rights and dignity

Ethical principle established by the APA for psychologists in clinical or therapeutic situations.

Eclectic approach

Therapists draw on whatever combination of therapies seems best suited to a client's needs.

Psychodynamic therapy

Uses insight therapy to help patients gain insight into underlying causes of mental distress.

Free association

Freudian technique encouraging the person to say whatever comes to mind to explore the unconscious.

Dream interpretation

Theory that manifest content of dreams are hidden symbolic representations of unconscious forces.

Resistance

Blocking from consciousness of anxiety-provoking memories.

Interpretation

Helping the client understand resistances and other aspects of behavior for deeper insights.

Transference

Patient's redirecting emotions from other relationships to the analyst.

Countertransference

Therapist's unconscious emotional response to the patient.

Catharsis

Intense emotional release a person can feel in therapy.

Humanistic perspective in therapy

Focus on the human; see humans as fundamentally good and help people accept themselves.

Person-centered therapy

Encourages client to discover own solutions and understand self through growth and self-awareness.

Active listening

Nondirective technique where the listener echoes, restates, clarifies clients' remarks.

Unconditional positive regard

Reinforces clients' value for who they are, accepting full self including strengths and faults.

Behavior perspective in therapy

Applies principles of operant or classical conditioning to eliminate problem behaviors.

Counter conditioning

New responses are classically conditioned to stimuli that trigger unwanted behaviors.

Exposure therapies

Treat anxiety by exposing people to things they normally fear and avoid.

Systematic desensitization

Type of counter conditioning in which relaxation is conditioned to a hierarchy of anxiety-provoking stimuli.

Aversive conditioning

Form of counter conditioning where an unpleasant state becomes associated with an unwanted behavior.

Token economy

Operant conditioning procedure promoting desirable behaviors by rewarding with tokens.

Cognitive therapy

Focuses on teaching people new and more adaptive ways of thinking and acting.

Cognitive triad

Three interrelated types of automatic thinking: negative thoughts about self, world, and future.

Rational-Emotive therapy

Confrontational cognitive therapy that challenges illogical, self-defeating attitudes.

Dialectical behavior therapy

Talk therapy adapted for intense emotions, helping understand how thoughts affect emotions and behaviors.

Rumination

Compulsive fretting; staying focused on a problem due to continual frontal lobe firing.

Group therapy

Small group setting where individuals realize they are not alone, reducing feelings of isolation.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

Biomedical therapy used to treat severe depression by passing electric shock through the brain.

rTMS (repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation)

Application of repeated pulses of magnetic energy to the brain to stimulate or suppress activity.

Prefrontal lobotomy

Form of psychosurgery severing nerves linking emotion centers of the brain to frontal lobes.