Key Concepts in Therapy and Treatment

These flashcards cover essential vocabulary and concepts relevant to therapy and treatments used in psychology.

Therapeutic alliance

The collaborative and trusting relationship between a therapist and a client, essential for effective therapy.

Fidelity

An ethical principle that involves being trustworthy, loyal, and maintaining professional commitments in therapy.

Integrity

Upholding honesty, accuracy, and truthfulness in a therapist's conduct and decision-making.

Respect for people's rights and dignity

Recognizing and protecting each client's rights to privacy, confidentiality, and self-determination.

Free association

A psychoanalytic technique in which clients say whatever comes to mind without censorship, aiming to uncover unconscious thoughts and feelings.

Dream interpretation

Analyzing the content of dreams to reveal unconscious conflicts and desires, commonly used in psychoanalysis.

Cognitive restructuring

A technique used in cognitive therapy to identify, challenge, and change distorted or harmful thinking patterns.

Fear hierarchies

A ranked list of anxiety-provoking situations used in exposure therapy to help clients gradually confront fears.

Exposure therapies

Behavioral techniques that involve exposing clients to feared objects or situations without danger to reduce anxiety over time.

Systematic desensitization

A type of exposure therapy that pairs gradual exposure to a feared stimulus with relaxation techniques to reduce anxiety.

Aversion therapies

Behavioral therapies that involve pairing an unwanted behavior with an unpleasant stimulus to reduce the behavior.

Token economies

A behavior modification system where individuals earn tokens for desired behaviors.

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)

A form of cognitive-behavioral therapy that combines strategies like mindfulness and emotion regulation, often used to treat borderline personality disorder.

Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT)

A cognitive-behavioral therapy developed by Albert Ellis that focuses on identifying and changing irrational beliefs that lead to emotional distress.

Antidepressants

Medications used to treat symptoms of depression by affecting neurotransmitters like serotonin, norepinephrine, or dopamine.

Antianxiety drugs

Medications that help reduce anxiety symptoms, often by enhancing the effects of GABA in the brain.

Lithium

A mood stabilizing drug commonly used to treat bipolar disorder by reducing the intensity and frequency of mood swings.

TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation)

A noninvasive procedure that uses magnetic fields to stimulate nerve cells in the brain, often used to treat depression.

Lobotomy

An outdated and rarely used surgical procedure that involved cutting connections in the brain's frontal lobes, once used to treat severe mental disorders.