Psychology in Everyday Life Chapter 14

Psychotherapy

treatment in involving psychological techniques; consists of interactions between a trained therapist and someone seeking to overcome psychological differences or to achieve personal growth

Biomedical Therapy

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

Eclectic Approach

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

Psychoanalysis

Freud’s therapeutic technique. Freud believed that the patient’s free associations, resistances, dreams and transferences--and the analyst’s interpretations of them--released previously repressed feelings, allowing the patient to gain self insight

Historic reconstruction

aims to unearth the past in the hope of loosening its bonds of the present

Resistance

the blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material

Interpretation

The analyst’s noting of supposed dream meanings, resistances, and other significant behaviors and events in order to promote insight

Transference

in psychoanalysis, the patient’s transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships

Psychodynamic Theory

therapy deriving from the psychoanalytic tradition; views individuals as responding to unconscious forces and childhood experiences, and seeks to enhance self-insight

Insight therapies

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

Person or Client-centered Therapy

a humanistic therapy, developed by Carl Rogers, in which the therapist uses techniques such as active listening within and accepting, genuine, empathetic environment to facilitate clients’ growth

Active Listening

empathetic listening in which the listener echoes, restates and seeks clarification. A feature of Rogers’ person centered therapy

Unconditional positive regard

a caring, accepting nonjudgmental attitude, which Carl Rogers believed would help clients develop self-awareness and self-acceptance

Behavior therapy

therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors

Counterconditioning

behavior therapy procedures that use classical conditioning to evoke new responses to stimuli that are triggering unwanted behaviors; includes exposure therapies and adversities conditioning

Exposure therapies

behavioral techniques, such as systematic desensitization, that treat anxieties by exposing people to the things they fear and avoid

Systematic desensitization

a type of exposure therapy that associated a pleasent, relaxed state with gradually increasing, anxiety-triggering stimuli

Virtual Reality Exposure therapy

a counterconditioning technique that treats anxiety through electronic simulations where people can safely conquer their greatest fears

Aversive Conditioning

associates an unpleasant state with an unwanted behavior

Token Economy

an operant conditioning procedure in which people earn a token for exhibiting a desired behavior and can later exchange tokens for privileges or treats

Cognitive therapy

therapy that teaches new, more adaptive ways of thinking; based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between event and our emotional reactions

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

a popular integrative therapy that combines cognitive therapy with behavior therapy

Catastrophizing

relentless, overgeneralized, self-blaming behavior

Dialectical Behavior Therapy

helps change harmful and suicidal behavioral problems

Group Therapy

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

Family Therapy

therapy that treats people in the context of their family system. Views and individuals unwanted behaviors as infleuenced by, or directed at other family members

Evidence-based practice

clinical decision that integrates the best available research with clinical expertise and patient characteristics and preferences

Therapeutic Alliance

a bind of trust and mutual understanding between a client and therapist, who work together constructively to overcome a client’s problem

Antipsychotic drugs

drugs used to treat schizophrenia and other forms of severe thought disorders, reduces patients’ overreactions to irrelevant stimuli

Antidepressant drugs

drugs used to treat depression, anxiety disorders, OCD, and PTSD

Electroconvulsive therapy

a biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in which a brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized patient

Repetitive Trans cranial magnetic stimulation

the application of repeated impulses of magnetic energy to the brain; used to stimulate or suppress brain activity

Deep brain stimulation

manipulates the brain by means of a pace maker

Psychosurgery

surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue in an effort to change behavior

Lobotomy

a psychosurgical procedure once used to calm emotional or violent patients

Preventative Medical Health Care

aims to prevent psychological casualties by identifying and eliminating the conditions that cause them

Resilience

the personal strength that helps most people cope with stress and recover from adversity and even trauma

Post traumatic growth

positive psychological changes as a result of struggling with extremely challenging circumstances and life crises