Therapy and Treatment of Abnormal Behavior

Flashcards based on lecture notes about Therapy and Treatment Approaches

What is therapy?

A treatment process used to deal with mental disorders or cope with problems of living.

What were some misguided theories about therapy in medieval Europe?

Mental disorders were thought to be the work of the devil, and therapists performed exorcisms.

What was Bedlam?

Bethlehem Hospital in London, a well-known asylum where people could pay to watch the inmates.

What were conditions like in medieval asylums?

Patients received only custodial care, were neglected, and were put in cruel restraints.

What is a common similarity among all therapy techniques?

Their end goal of changing a person’s functioning in some way.

What is an eclectic approach in therapy?

Selecting various techniques to help individuals, like choosing from a buffet table.

What are some of the main types of professional help?

Counseling Psychologist, Clinical Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Psychoanalysist, Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, Clinical or Psychiatric Social Worker, Pastoral Counselor

What are the three major categories of professionals who provide therapy?

Physicians, Mental Health Specialists, and Other professionals (e.g. clergy.)

Who were key figures in the gentler treatment of mental illness?

Philippe Pinel and Dorothea Dix

What is psychotherapy?

An emotionally charged, confiding interaction between a trained therapist and someone who suffers from psychological difficulties.

Eclectic Approach

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

What is the Freudian view on the origin of psychological problems?

They arise from tension in the unconscious mind caused by forbidden impulses and threatening memories.

What is the major goal of psychoanalysis?

To reveal and interpret the contents of the unconscious mind.

What is free association?

A method used in psychoanalysis where patients speak freely to uncover the past and unmask the present

What is resistance in psychoanalysis?

Blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material.

What is interpretation in psychoanalysis?

The analyst's noting supposed dream meanings, resistances, and other significant behaviors to promote insight.

What is transference?

The patient’s transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships.

What is the focus of neo-Freudian psychodynamic therapies?

The conscious, rather than the unconscious, mind.

What is interpersonal therapy?

A brief variation of psychodynamic therapy that helps gain insight into the roots of difficulties and aims to become symptom-free in the present.

What is the goal of insight therapies?

To develop an understanding of the disordered thoughts, emotions, and motives that underlie mental difficulties.

How do humanistic therapies help clients?

Recognizing their own freedom, enhancing their self-esteem, and realizing their fullest potential

What is client-centered therapy?

Developed by Carl Rogers, it uses techniques such as active listening within a genuine, accepting, empathic environment to facilitate client's growth

Nondirective Therapy

Therapist listens without judgment and refrains from directing the client toward insights.

What is active listening?

Empathic listening in which the listener echoes, restates, and clarifies.

What is unconditional positive regard?

Accept worst traits and feel valued and whole.

What is the assumption behind behavior therapies?

Undesirable behaviors have been learned, and therefore, can be unlearned.

What is counterconditioning?

Procedure that conditions new responses to stimuli that trigger unwanted behaviors; based on classical conditioning.

What are exposure therapies?

Exposure to stimuli that is normally avoided.

What is systematic desensitization?

Associates a pleasant, relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli.

Who used systematic desensitization to cure phobias in children?

Mary Cover Jones.

Who created the Hierarchical of Anxiety?

John Wolpe

What is virtual reality exposure therapy?

Progressive exposure to simulations of fears.

What is aversive conditioning?

Associates an unpleasant state with an unwanted behavior.

What is behavior modification?

Reinforcing desired behaviors and withholding reinforcement for undesired behaviors.

Definition of Token Economy

An operant conditioning procedure that rewards desired behavior.

What is cognitive therapy?

Teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking and acting.

What is cognitive-behavioral therapy?

Combines cognitive therapy (changing self-defeating thinking) with behavior therapy (changing behavior).

What is the goal of cognitive-behavioral therapy?

To modify irrational self-talk, set attainable behavioral goals, and develop realistic strategies for attaining them.

What is the focus of family therapy?

Treats the family as a system and views an individual’s unwanted behaviors as influenced by or directed at other family members.

What did Hans Eysenck suggest in his 1952 study?

That therapy was worthless and no better than having no treatment at all.

What is the biomedical approach to therapy?

Changing the brain’s chemistry with drugs, its circuitry with surgery, or its patterns of activity with pulses of electricity or magnetic fields.

What is psychopharmacology?

Study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior.

What are antipsychotic drugs used for?

To treat the symptoms of psychosis: delusions, hallucinations, social withdrawal, and agitation.

What is a potential long-term side effect of antipsychotic drugs?

Tardive dyskinesia (uncontrollable disturbance of motor control, especially in the facial muscles).

What is the function of antidepressant drugs?

Turning up the volume on messages transmitted over certain brain pathways, especially those using norepinephrine and serotonin.

What are the two main categories of antianxiety drugs?

Barbiturates and benzodiazepines.

What effects do stimulants have?

They produce excitement or hyperactivity.

What is the truth about drugs and mental illness?

Cannot cure any mental illness, can alter the brain to suppress some symptoms, can have negative long-term effects, can be habit-forming, and are often over prescribed.

What is a lobotomy?

A now-rare psychosurgical procedure once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients.

What is electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)?

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

How does culture affect the treatment of disorders?

The way a disorder is treated relies on the way it is viewed, which is heavily dependent on the culture in which it is being treated.

What do indigenous treatments often rely on?

Family, community networks, and spiritual healers.

What is cultural competency in therapy?

Providing clinicians who are sensitive to the client's cultural background.