UNIT 13

Psychotherapy

Treatment involving psychological techniques; consists of interactions between a trained therapist and someone seeking to overcome psychological difficulties or achieve personal growth.

Biomedical Therapy

Prescribed medications or procedures that act directly on the person’s physiology.

Eclectic

An approach to psychotherapy that uses techniques from various forms of therapy.

Psychoanalysis

(1) Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts. (2) Sigmund Freud’s therapeutic technique used to treat psychological disorders.

Resistance

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

Interpretation

In Psychoanalysis, the analyst’s noting of supposed dream meanings, resistances, and other significant behaviors and events to promote insight.

Transferring

In Psychoanalysis, the patient’s transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships.

Psychodynamic Therapists

Therapy deriving from the Psychoanalytic tradition; views individuals as responding to unconscious forces and childhood experiences.

Insight Therapies

Therapies that aim to improve psychological functioning by increasing a person’s awareness of underlying motives and defenses.

Client-Centered Therapy

A humanistic therapy, developed by Carl Rogers, that involves techniques like Active Listening in an accepting and empathic environment.

Active Listening

Empathic listening where the listener echoes, restates, and clarifies; a feature of Client-Centered Therapy.

Unconditional Positive Regard

A caring, accepting, non-judgmental attitude, believed to help clients develop self-awareness and self-acceptance.

Behavior Therapists

Therapy that applies learning principles to eliminate unwanted behaviors.

Counterconditioning

Behavior therapy procedures that use classical conditioning to create new responses to stimuli triggering 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 pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli.

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy

A Counterconditioning Technique that uses simulations to treat anxiety by allowing people to safely face 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 individuals earn tokens for desirable behaviors, which they can exchange for privileges.

Cognitive Therapies

Therapy that teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking, based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and emotional reactions.

Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)

A Confrontational Cognitive Therapy developed by Albert Ellis that challenges self-defeating attitudes and assumptions.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

An Integrative Therapy combining Cognitive Therapy with Behavior Therapy.

Group Therapy

Therapy conducted with groups rather than individuals, providing benefits from group interaction.

Family Therapy

Therapy treating individuals in the context of their family system; addresses unwanted behaviors influenced by family dynamics.

Meta-Analysis

A Procedure for statistically combining the results of many different research studies.

Evidence Based Practice

Clinical decision making integrating the best research with clinical expertise and patient characteristics.

Therapeutic Alliance

A bond of trust and understanding between a therapist and client, working together to overcome the client’s problem.

Psychopharmacology

The study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior.

Antipsychotic Drugs

Drugs used to treat Schizophrenia and severe Thought Disorders.

Antianxiety Drugs

Drugs used to control Anxiety and Agitation.

Antidepressant Drugs

Drugs used to treat Depression, Anxiety Disorders, and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)

A Biomedical Therapy for severely depressed patients involving sending an electric current through the brain.

Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS)

The application of repeated pulses of magnetic energy to stimulate or suppress brain activity.

Psychosurgery

Surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue to change behavior.

Lobotomy

A Psychosurgical Procedure once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients.

Resilience

The personal strength that helps most people cope with stress and recover from adversity.

Posttraumatic Growth

Positive psychological changes as a result of struggling with challenging circumstances and life crises.