Psychotherapy Theory: The Historical Context Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering historical developments, major theoretical forces, integration strategies, and contemporary frameworks in psychotherapy.

Psychology's Dual Heritage

The historical foundation of psychology formed from the scientific tradition (providing evidence of efficacy and legitimacy) and the humanistic tradition (laying the foundation for caring, empathic, and meaning-making aspects).

Materialism

A philosophical term stipulating that matter is the sole basis of reality, leading early 20th-century medicine to insist that bodily illnesses have biological causes requiring biological alterations.

Emmanuel Movement

A movement founded in 1906 by physicians and Christian ministers in which lectures and services were followed by nonphysicians administering psychical treatment to patients.

Psychoanalysis

A grand theory and system developed by Sigmund Freud encompassing the conscious and unconscious mind, designed as a method to treat mental disorders through gaining insight into repressed traumatic events.

Systematic Desensitization

The first clinical application of learning theory developed by Joseph Wolpe, using progressive relaxation as an incompatible response to reduce phobic reactions.

Behaviorism

The 'second force' in psychotherapy, defined by John B. Watson as a materialistic, mechanistic, deterministic, and objective approach that focuses on observable behavior rather than unobservable mentalistic constructs.

Third Wave of Behavioral Therapies

A modern generation of CBTs (e.g., ACT, DBT) characterized by a focus on mindfulness, acceptance, defusion, life values, relationships, treatment rationale, and the therapeutic alliance.

Emotion-Focused Therapy

A humanistic variant (formerly process experiential therapy) resting on six principles regarding emotional experiencing, therapist authenticity, agency, wholeness, diversity, and growth.

Object Relations School

A modern psychodynamic branch emphasizing human attachment needs and early attachment internalization, where therapy replaces an internalized 'bad object' with the therapist as a 'good object'.

Interpersonal Psychotherapy

A psychodynamic thread emanating from Harry Stack Sullivan that treats anxiety created in interpersonal space, positioning the therapist as an interacting subject and object in the interpersonal field.

Empirically Supported Treatments (ESTs)

Psychotherapies (formerly called empirically validated treatments) that meet explicit criteria—such as superiority in two randomized controlled trials—to establish scientific efficacy for specific disorders.

Evidence-Based Practice in Psychology (EBPP)

The integration of the best available research with clinical expertise in the context of patient characteristics, culture, and preferences, as defined by the APA.

Theoretical Integration

The synthesis of two or more theoretical models and their corresponding therapeutic actions into a single conceptualization (e.g., Wachtel's integration of psychoanalysis and behavior therapy).

Technical Eclecticism

An approach that empirically selects the optimal treatment technique for a client based on individual characteristics and context without relying on theoretical integration (e.g., multimodal therapy).

Common Factors Perspective

The view that successful outcomes across different therapies are driven by shared elements, including an empathic relationship, a healing context, a cogent rationale (myth), and therapeutic procedures (ritual).

Dodo Bird Effect

A phrase drawn from Alice in Wonderland ('Everybody has won, and all must have prizes') to describe the empirical finding that different differentiated psychotherapy approaches yield equivalent outcomes.

Transdiagnostic Treatments

Therapies that apply universal principles, modular symptom-cluster components, and shared underlying target mechanisms across a broad range of psychological diagnoses.

Culturally Encapsulated Counselor

A term coined by C. Gilbert Wrenn (1961) for a practitioner who disregards cultural variations, applies simplistic technique-oriented solutions, and imposes dominant cultural values as universal criteria.

Narrative Therapy

A postmodern approach asserting that identity is formed through self-constructed life stories, focusing the therapeutic process on changing the meanings ascribed to one's life stories and problems.