Chapter 15

Antianxiety drugs

Drugs that relieve tension, apprehension, and nervousness.

Antidepressant drugs

Drugs that gradually elevate mood and help to bring people out of a depression.

Antipsychotic drugs

Drugs used to gradually reduce psychotic symptoms, including hyperactivity, mental confusion, hallucinations, and delusions.

Behavior therapies

The application of the principles of learning to direct efforts to change clients’ maladaptive behaviors.

Biomedical therapies

Physiological interventions intended to reduce symptoms associated with psychological disorders.

Client-centered therapy

An insight therapy that emphasizes providing a supportive emotional climate for clients, who play a major role in determining the pace and direction of their therapy.

Clinical psychologists

Psychologists who specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders and everyday behavioral problems.

Cognitive therapy

An insight therapy that uses specific strategies to correct habitual thinking errors that underlie various types of disorders.

Cognitive-behavioral therapies (CBT)

Varied combinations of verbal interventions and behavior modification techniques designed to help clients change maladaptive patterns of thinking.

Counseling psychologists

Psychologists who specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders and everyday behavioral problems.

Couples

The treatment of both partners in a committed, intimate relationship, in which the main focus is on relationship issues.

Dream Analysis

A psychotherapeutic technique in which the therapist interprets the symbolic meaning of the client’s dreams.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

A biomedical treatment in which electric shock is used to produce a cortical seizure accompanied by convulsions.

Exposure Therapies

An approach to behavior therapy in which clients are confronted with situations that they fear so they learn that these situations are really harmless.

Family Therapy

The treatment of a family unit as a whole, in which the main focus is on family dynamics and communication.

Free Association

A psychotherapeutic technique in which clients spontaneously express their thoughts and feelings exactly as they occur, with as little censorship as possible.

Group Therapy

The simultaneous treatment of several or more clients in a group.

Insight Therapies

A group of psychotherapies in which verbal interactions are intended to enhance clients’ self-knowledge and thus promote healthful changes in personality and behavior.

Interpretation

A therapist’s attempts to explain the inner significance of the client’s thoughts, feelings, memories, and behaviors.

Marital Therapy

The treatment of both partners in a committed, intimate relationship, in which the main focus is on relationship issues.

Psychiatrists

Physicians who specialize in the treatment of psychological disorders.

Psychoanalysis

An insight therapy that emphasizes the recovery of unconscious conflicts, motives, and defenses through techniques such as free association, dream analysis, and transference.

Resistance

Largely unconscious defensive maneuvers intended to hinder the progress of therapy.

School Psychologists

Psychologists who specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders and behavioral problems, typically working with young people in academic contexts.

Social Skills Training

A behavior therapy designed to improve interpersonal skills that emphasizes modeling, behavioral rehearsal, and shaping.

Systematic desensitization

A behavior therapy used to reduce clients’ anxiety responses through counterconditioning.

Tardive dyskinesia

A neurological disorder marked by chronic tremors and involuntary spastic movements.

Transference

A phenomenon that occurs when clients start relating to their therapist in ways that mimic critical relationships in their lives.

Mood stabilizers

Drugs used to control mood swings in patients with bipolar mood disorders.